San Francisco, CA news and local guide

After the missions were secularized under Mexico, Juana Briones de Miranda set up the first non-Native civilian household in 1833. The pueblo of Yerba Buena was founded in 1834 on the cove, around the plaza now called Portsmouth Square. American forces from the USS Portsmouth under John B. Montgomery captured Yerba Buena on July 9, 1846, with little resistance. The settlement, later renamed San Francisco, had only about 459 people in 1847. The Gold Rush raised the population from about 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. Crews deserted their ships for the gold fields, and about 500 abandoned vessels were used as storeships, saloons and hotels, or sunk to claim underwater lots. By 1870 Yerba Buena Cove had been filled in, and buried ships still turn up in excavations. At 5:12 a.m. on April 18, 1906, a major earthquake struck. The fires that followed burned for days, and more than three-quarters of the city was left in ruins. Contemporary accounts put the dead at 498, while modern estimates run to several thousand. Sources Wikipedia: San Francisco