San Francisco Police Department

The Graham House City Hall

In May 1850, the council acquired the Graham House Hotel at Pacific and Montgomery streets for $50,000 - again from one of its members - and turned it into city hall. Executive and judicial officers were placed on the upper floors. A police Office and Jail "suitable for years to come" were placed on the bottom floor. The jail can be seen in the center foreground in the illustration at right.

The scene depicts the excited attempt in February 1851 to seize and hang two wrongly accused Australian criminals. In 1850, San Francisco obtained its first charter, which among its other provisions, provided for an elected marshal with "superintending control" of the police department. In keeping with common practice of the time, the marshal was to be selected by popular vote at yearly elections. Two months after the charter was adopted, the city council reorganized the little department, dividing the city into three districts and boosting the strength of the force to 75 officers and men.

Police Districts 1850

The first district, with its station house at First and Mission Streets in Happy Valley, extended from California Street to Rincon Point. The Second District, with its station housed at City Hall at Pacific and Kearny, embraced the main business district. And the Third District, with a station on Ohio Street (now Osgood Place) covered the area from Pacific Avenue north to North beach. There was also a little lock-up or "calaboose" located in the First District station house.

As things were then, following each election the entire police department would be turned out and replaced by officers answerable to newly elected officials. It was not prescription for organizational success and on two - in 1851 and again in 1856 - the famed Vigilance Committee wrested control of the justice system from the regularly established authorities and administered justice on their own account. For all of that, the little department struggled for an organizational identity in the maelstrom of civic disorder, and implemented several needed innovations. The first rulebook instructing officers in their duties was issued in 1853 and shortly thereafter a detective component was added to follow up on crime and prepare cases for prosecution. The Graham House City Hall burned in the June 1851 fire, the last major conflagration of the early days. In 1852 the council purchased the Jenny Lind Theater at Kearny and Washington and outfitted it as a city hall.