San Francisco's Lost Landmarks. James R. Smith

      Abe Warner retired in 1897 at the age of eighty. By then, the state of Meigg’s Wharf reflected a serious decline in business. The shipping trade returned to the piers by the new Ferry Building, where the wide Embarcadero Road and new rail lines could quickly dispatch goods. Fancier attractions elsewhere beckoned the crowds. Nickel trolleys bused folks to Sutro’s Baths at Ocean Beach where a dime gained entry with fifteen cents more to swim indoors. The Baths boasted the world’s largest indoor saltwater pool, which held over a million and a half gallons. The structure also housed a mechanical arcade, a theater with ongoing stage productions, three restaurants, and a museum, all under a magnificent Victorian glass-paned roof covering two acres. Awe-inspiring Golden Gate Park with its paved carriage roads and glorious exhibits drew both the elite and the masses. Stunning views of the Pacific and Seal Rock from the French chateau-inspired Cliff House attracted locals and tourists alike. San Francisco now sported a taste for the fine life and the dingy sights around the old wharf simply would not do.

COBWEB PALACE

      Michael Doyle wrote a letter to his grandchildren in the 1920s telling about his childhood and early years in San Francisco. In that letter he related the following:

      Northerly, I looked down upon the peninsula’s head with its two blunt horns, Russian and Telegraph hills, quite bare in those days, between which protruded Meigg’s Wharf like a long tongue lapping the waters beyond….