San Francisco City Hall Rebuilds

As San Francisco became the premiere city of the US West Coast in the latter 19th century, the call for a magnificent City Hall to match the dynamic city was raised. Construction began in 1870. Unfortunately, contracts were handed out as political favors and it took seven chief architects and 27 years for SF City Hall to be completed in 1897, a complex of buildings built on a triangular park, the largest municipal building west of Chicago.

Nine years later, the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake destroyed the practically new City Hall much to everyone’s surprise. The design had failed being built “without any of the principles of the steel frame construction having been used.” A design for a new city hall was selected and construction started in 1913 and was to be completed by 1915 in time for the Panama Pacific International Exposition.

On March 1, 1915 construction on the new San Francisco City Hall continues. This photo taken that day shows the stone construction and cleaner lines that the new structure will feature.