The lake that gave Mission Dolores its name and location June 25, 2007
thumbnail of old map; note: north is to the right.
Unlike many Spanish missions, Mission Dolores in San Francisco was not named after a saint or a Biblical figure. Apparently, it was named after a small lake (or a lagoon within the lake) upon whose shores it was built. Early Spanish explorers gave the lake the name Dolores because they saw Indians weeping on its bank. The mission was built there because it seemed to be a good place to obtain fresh water and grow crops, and took its name from the event/lake. The lake not only no longer exists, but is has been largely filled in and almost forgotten.
The best way to understand the lake is to go to the southwest corner of 17th and Mission and look up and down both streets. You will notice that you are actually in the center of a basin that has been somewhat filled in but is still about 20 feet deep, that extends several blocks in every direction.
The spot at the northwest corner of 17th and Mission is very near what was the deepest part of the lake. The lake extended about two blocks in all directions. If you look west on 17th street, you can see that the Mission Dolores is three blocks away, just a block beyond what was the shore of the lake. Now walk south a block on Mission and look west on 18th. This was a ravine in which was the creek that fed the lake, the water coming down from Twin Peaks.The Mission Dolores was built one city block north from the edge of the ravine and about the same distance west from the shore of the lake. Water exited the lake at about what is now 16th and Howard, going east down 16th, and then draining generally north east toward the bay through a tidal estuary.
Bayard Taylor who saw the Mission valley in 1849 says: “Three miles from San Francisco is the old mission of Dolores situated in a sheltered valley which is watered by a perpetual stream fed from the tall peaks towards the sea. * * * Several former miners in anticipation of a great influx of emigrants in the spring, pitched their tents on the best spots along Mission creek and began preparing the ground for gardens. The valley was surveyed and staked into lots almost to the summit of the mountains” (Eldorado pp. 64, 298-9).
As is implied in the passage above, eventually the lake was drained and filled in with dirt, and built over. In 1906, the loose fill dirt created havoc during the earthquake). One eyewitness describes a famous scene on Valencia:
Along Valencia Street from 21st to 17th, there was a hole big enough to bury at least 50 people, not to mention horses. The old Valencia Street Hotel, where I had played sliding over the banister, was lying flat on the ground and all the people in it had lost their lives, was the report.
Valencia Street was an old creekbed, [actually the creek ran through there, but it was perpendicular to Valencia, more or less under 18th Street] which had been filled in and then built on. The severe jolts of the quake caused the soft-packed fill to settle suddenly, leaving gaping holes in the street. The buildings on top of the fill reeled with the force of this settling, and houses for several blocks leaped off their foundations. The four-story Valencia Hotel [718 Valencia, almost at 18th Street] collapsed like a tower of cards. Its top floor landed intact in the middle of the street with the bottom three floors flattened underneath, crushing at least 15 people. [Here is my favorite image of the Valencia Hotel and surroundings.]
This scene found its way into the 1936 movie San Francisco. As Clark Gable searches desperately through the city’s rubble for Jeannette MacDonald, he comes upon the collapsed hotel. A policeman tells him, “Those on the top floor stepped right out their windows to the street. The others were out of luck.”
That this was literally true can be seen in this photo.
Another eyewitness recalled:
>I was curious to see the nearest fire at the corner of 22nd and Mission St. Our house was located at 931 Dolores Street in the block between the 22nd and 23rd Streets. >As I ran across Valencia St. going to the Mission St. fire, I noticed on my left down Valencia St. a small old three-story hotel. (Evidently it had been built over a subterranean faultline.) The first story had partly sank in the earth while the second and third had fallen out into the street. That was the first structural destruction I had witnessed.
Another image of the Valencia Hotel can be seen here.
The total devastation of Valencia in the area of 19th can be seen here, in the aftermath a month later. Partly because the Mission Dolores was built west of the lake and thus not in the later fill, it was undamaged in the 1906 quake.
Much of the Mission District was in ruins but, unlike many other areas of the city, it did not burn. The shifting soil apparently ruptured the water mains between Valencia and Mission, but the fire department was able to keep the Mission District from burning by using the Twin Peaks water coming out of the hydrants on Valencia.
>At the fire which destroyed the building at the northwest corner of Mission and 22nd streets immediately after the earthquake, there was no water to be had east of Valencia Street, but the double hydrant at the northwest corner of 22nd and Valencia and the southwest corner of Valencia and 21st St. furnished an abundant supply, which, with the aid of the cistern at 22nd and Shotwell St., extinguished the fire.
