Our Pick
Posted on @rawstates
Emperor Norton
1859
California Street at Grant, San Francisco
Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Joshua Norton lost everything cornering the rice market, then walked into a newspaper office with a proclamation naming himself Emperor of the United States. The paper printed it. For twenty-one years the city played along: restaurants seated him, his own scrip was accepted, and he was obeyed in the way a mascot is obeyed. He collapsed on this corner in 1880, and something like ten thousand people came to the funeral. He had also ordered a bridge built across the bay, decades early.
That was 1 of the hidden places.
Location: historic site
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