San Francisco Landmarks

San Francisco Landmark 12: Hotaling Building in Jackson Square 5 July 2010
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San Francisco Landmark #12
Hotaling Building
451 Jackson Street
Built 1866

The Hotaling Building is in the Jackson Square Historic District.

Anson Parson Hotaling built this structure as a headquarters for his several business interests which included liquor, real estate and trade. The Italianate façade is cast iron with cast iron shutters typical of contemporary advances in fire resistant construction.

The East Annex was originally a stable for a hotel, but Mr Hotaling purchased both the East and West Annexes to warehouse his whiskey. He and the whiskey business still prospered in 1906, and his buildings survived the Earthquake and Fire. Clergymen scolded from the few remaining pulpits that the disaster was God's divine retribution for the wickedness of San Franciscans (same old same old). Charles Field responded:

If, as they say, God spanked the town
For being over-frisky,
Why did He burn His churches down1
And spare Hotaling's whiskey?

1 e.g. St. Patrick's and Old St. Mary's

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