Block 6 |
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Learn about the Noonan Family 
This
block is bounded by Bryant, Brannan, Eighth and Ninth streets. Before
European settlement, the northern portion of the block consisted of
sand hills. Towards the south, the sand hills dropped twenty feet down
to the marshlands. Mission Creek passed the block near the corner of
Brannan and Ninth. By the mid-1850s the marshy areas of the block were
filled. Its sand hills were leveled after 1857.
The block was the location of San Francisco' first Butchertown that
supplied meat to the Gold Rush city's inhabitants. During the 1860s
and 1870s, the block underwent little development. Perhaps the most
significant building on the block during this period was the Rosett
Hotel, later renamed the North German Hotel at the corner of Eight and
Brannan streets. The hotel was constructed about 1875 and provided lodging
for many German and Swiss immigrants. The hotel also 
temporarily
housed the Stanford Free Kindergarten, one of five built in the impoverished
South of Market area by Mrs. Leland Stanford after the death of her
young son.
The 1887 Sanborn Fire Insurance map suggests that the character of the block was one of vacant lots interspersed with small groups of mainly two-story dwellings, saloons and stores.
After the 1906 Earthquake and fire, and until 1913, the block was built up with industry including the Enterprise Foundry on Brannan Street.