California Historical Landmark #90

While we were in San Francisco in December, I did a walkabout and found eight different California Historical Markers, including: #88 Niantic Hotel; #90 Fort Gunnybags; #462 Site of First Jewish Religious Services in San Francisco; #408 Site of the the first Meeting of Freemasons held in California; #453 Lucas, Turner & Co. Bank; #192 El Dorado, Park House and Dennison's Exchange; #500 Site of the Eastern Terminus of Clay Street Hill Railroad; and, #119 PORTSMOUTH PLAZA.

Fort Gunnybags
California State Historical Landmark #90
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This landmark is located at 243 Sacramento Street, San Francisco, California. There are 48 other California State Historical Landmarks in San Francisco County. The GPS coordinates for this location are 37° 47' 39.8" N 122° 23' 53.9" W.

You can log your visit to this landmark at waymark.com.


This is the site of the headquarters of the Vigilance Committee of 1856. On June 21, 1856, Judge David S. Terry was arrested and confined in a cell. The committee, fearing that his friends might attempt to rescue him, decided to fortify the building with gunnysacks filled with sand.


The Sacramento Block was built in the 1850's as a warehouse. In 1856, the San Francisco Vigilance Committee made it their headquarters and arsenal and fortified it with gunnysacks.

The Vigilance Committee erected a scaffold in Davis Street near Fort Gunnybags and executed Brace and Heatherington (alternately, Hetherington) on July 29, 1856, for unrelated murders.

The Sacramento Block warehouse was a simple, two-story Classical Revival building built of brick and stucco. The firstd floor had casement doors and the second floor had tall casement windows. Although the Sacramento Block building was destroyed in the Great Earthquake and Fire, surviving warehouses in the nearby Northeast Waterfront Historic District are similar to the lost buidling.