The Saloon, located at 1232 Grant Avenue in
North Beach, is currently the oldest tavern of
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
and for decades has offered dancing and live music.
History
The Saloon first opened in 1861, and has been in continuous operation ever since. Blogger Sam Devine contends that the building was entirely destroyed in the
San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906. Mr. Levine's theory does not explain how the Saloon's mahogany bar (installed in the 1860s) survived the fire which he claims destroyed the building.
This drinking establishment was originally owned by Ferdinand E. Wagner, the son of a liquor merchant in
Stundwiller (Bas Rhin, France), who named it Wagner's Beer Hall. In 1836 Wagner migrated to Louisiana, married a native of
Cannes
Cannes ( , , ; oc, Canas) is a city located on the French Riviera. It is a communes of France, commune located in the Alpes-Maritimes departments of France, department, and host city of the annual Cannes Film Festival, Midem, and Cannes Lions I ...
in 1845, and then opened a saloon there. But in 1852 Wagner moved to San Francisco, and first worked as a hotel manager and then as a fruit vendor. He brought his family to San Francisco, and by 1868 he opened Wagner's Beer Hall at 308 Dupont Street. When Dupont Street was renamed as
Grant Avenue
Grant Avenue in San Francisco, California, is one of the oldest streets in the city's Chinatown district. It runs in a north–south direction starting at Market Street in the heart of downtown and dead-ending past Francisco Street in the North ...
, it was renumbered as 1232 Grant. Ferdinand and his family lived in the two floors above the bar, and one of his sons would continue to operate the business after Ferdinand retired. The Saloon was also featured in the 1975 episode of "
The Streets of San Francisco
''The Streets of San Francisco'' is a television crime drama filmed on location in San Francisco and produced by Quinn Martin, Quinn Martin Productions, with the first season produced in association with Warner Bros. Television (QM produced the ...
" called "Poisoned Snow".
Michael Douglas
Michael Kirk Douglas (born September 25, 1944) is an American actor and film producer. He has received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, and the AF ...
,
Karl Malden
Karl Malden (born Mladen George Sekulovich; March 22, 1912 – July 1, 2009) was an American actor. He was primarily a character actor, who according to Robert Berkvist, "for more than 60 years brought an intelligent intensity and a homespun aut ...
and
Anthony Geary
Anthony Geary (born May 29, 1947) is an American actor. He is known for playing the role of Luke Spencer on the ABC daytime drama ''General Hospital''. He originated the role of Luke in 1978 and received a record eight Daytime Emmy Awards for O ...
filmed scenes inside the bar.
The building looks very much the same as it does in photographs from the 1870s. The elaborate wooden bar, which is currently in use, was installed in the 1860s, and was constructed outside of America and later shipped to
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
. The Saloon is located in the
North Beach neighborhood of
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
, although in the 1860s its location occurred near the northern border of the
Barbary Coast district. During that time the Barbary Coast had scores of
dance halls
Dance hall in its general meaning is a hall for dancing. From the earliest years of the twentieth century until the early 1960s, the dance hall was the popular forerunner of the discothèque or nightclub. The majority of towns and cities in ...
and concert saloons.
[Cressey, Paul: The Taxi-Dance Hall, University of Chicago Press, 1932, p. 179]
Music
In the late 1960s and 1970s Grant Avenue had numerous
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
clubs like The Saloon, which supplied live bands playing music every night. Though many of those
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
clubs have disappeared, The Saloon continues to provide a dance floor and daily performances by locally acclaimed musicians. Despite its small size, throughout time The Saloon has attracted the performances of many talented and occasionally famous musicians.
Notable performers
The following is a partial list of who either got their start or had performances at The Saloon:
*
James Cotton
James Henry Cotton (July 1, 1935 – March 16, 2017) was an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter, who performed and recorded with many fellow blues artists and with his own band. He also played drums early in his career.
...
*
Boz Scaggs
William Royce "Boz" Scaggs (born June 8, 1944) is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. An early bandmate of Steve Miller in The Ardells and the Steve Miller Band, he began his solo career in 1969, though he lacked a major hit until h ...
*
Paul Butterfield
Paul Vaughn Butterfield (December 17, 1942May 4, 1987) was an American blues harmonica player, singer and band leader. After early training as a classical flautist, he developed an interest in blues harmonica. He explored the blues scene in his n ...
*
John Cipollina
John Cipollina (August 24, 1943 – May 29, 1989) was a guitarist best known for his role as a founder and the lead guitarist of the prominent San Francisco rock band Quicksilver Messenger Service. After leaving Quicksilver he formed the band C ...
*
Robben Ford
Robben Lee Ford (born December 16, 1951) is an American blues, jazz, and rock guitarist. He was a member of the L.A. Express and Yellowjackets and has collaborated with Miles Davis, Joni Mitchell, George Harrison, Larry Carlton, Rick Springfield ...
*
The Blues Project
The Blues Project is a band from the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City that was formed in 1965 and originally split up in 1967. Their songs drew from a wide array of musical styles. They are most remembered as one of the most artfu ...
*
Nick Gravenites
Nicholas George Gravenites (; born October 2, 1938) is an American blues, rock and folk singer, songwriter, and guitarist, best known for his work with Electric Flag (as their lead singer), Janis Joplin, Mike Bloomfield and several influential b ...
*
Tommy Castro
Tommy Castro (born April 15, 1955, San Jose, California, United States) is an American blues, R&B, and rock guitarist and singer. He has been recording since the mid-1990s. His music has taken him from local stages to national and internation ...
*
Johnny Nitro
See also
*
1906 San Francisco earthquake
At 05:12 Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (''Extreme''). High-intensity sha ...
*
Barbary Coast
*
Gold Rush of 1849
The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) was a gold rush that began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California fro ...
*
Jackson Square
*
North Beach
*
Telegraph Hill A telegraph hill is a hill or other natural elevation that is chosen as part of an optical telegraph system.
Telegraph Hill may also refer to:
England
* A high point in the Haldon Hills, Devon
* Telegraph Hill, Dorset, a hill in the Dorset Down ...
*
The Blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the African- ...
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saloon
Music venues in San Francisco
North Beach, San Francisco
Drinking establishments in the San Francisco Bay Area
Restaurants in San Francisco
Restaurants established in 1861
1861 establishments in California
19th century in San Francisco
Saloons