About

San Francisco Mint

Earthquake photograph downtown San Francisco

The Mint in the aftermath of earthquake fires engulfing the city. The Mint Building survived with relatively minor damage. (Museum of the City of San Francisco)

�Symbolically, the Mint has been a source of pride to San Franciscans, who from the start saw the monumental and elegant federal building as an affirmation that the City had come of age and the State of California, then only 25 years old, was truly part of the nation.�

IMPORTANCE IN HISTORY

One witness described the 1906 earthquake like this:

�The street beds heaved in frightful fashion. The earth rocked and then came the blow that wrecked San Francisco from...the Golden Gate to the end of the peninsula...A world of structural work had found a resting place on mother earth. Bent steel girders and huge blocks of decorative stone made their sleeping place beside all this.�

Amid the ruins of the city, the Mint stood shaken but intact. It immediately became a �refugee village� and a center for relief aid. After the shock, as the city began to burn, workers saved the building and its holdings. This fact helped promote economic stability through quick recirculation of money and stimulated the fast recovery of the city.

Before its completion, Alfred Mullett said, �The destruction...in San Francisco by earthquakes has rendered it necessary to take every precaution...and I am willing to risk my professional reputation upon its stability if properly carried out according to my plans.� His word stood vindicated in the terrible moments following the quake.

The Mint building (center left) as it stands amid the wasteland of San Francisco after the earthquake. (Museum of the City of San Francisco)

Among the factors that secured the building from destruction by the quake and subsequent fires were the quick response of the fire department to douse the building in water, the efforts of mint employees and volunteers to secure the building, and�with credit to Mullett�the building�s distance from other structures, which prevented fire from quickly spreading. The structural integrity of the building also proved its merit as it suffered little damage from the quake itself.

THE FINANCIAL WORLD

The Mint played an important role in financial history from 1874 until its closing in 1937: by 1934 one third of gold was stored at the facility; it coined money for nations such as Japan, China, the Philippines, and Latin American countries; and it was central to the reconstruction of San Francisco.

Sorting through newly minted pennies. (Museum of the City of San Francisco)

LIFE AFTER "MINTING"

From 1937-57 the Mint remained under Treasury control, housing offices of the Geodetic survey, Bureau of Standards, Bureau of Mines, and Civil Service Commission, among others. A major preservation battle was fought over the building in the 1950s and 60s. Impassioned community members, architects, preservationists, and politicians called for saving the Mint. Here are just three examples of the many letters sent to the Secretary of the Interior, Mayor, and other officials by citizens hoping to save the Old Mint:

�If all would only speak up I believe those of us with some public spirit and civic pride would far outnumber those who wish to demolish the building.� �Lillien Kendall

�In my humble opinion the SF people who favor razing the Old Mint structure are of the same type of thinkers President Lincoln had to contend with a hundred years ago. They are motivated primarily and chiefly by the bias of selfishness and self interest centered in their own immediate equation of time and living.� �C. M. Kirkland

�The Old Mint was built just two years after my mother was born not very many blocks away. She daily passed it on her way to the old LincolnSchool. . . . She often spoke of the old building and I know she hoped it would be preserved as an important part of the old San Francisco now so rapidly disappearing.� �Beatrice Freeland.

Stone interior courtyard wall of the Mint

The photograph of a courtyard of the Old Mint building showing the stone deterioration and the need for careful preservation efforts. (Curator's Office)

The Old Mint underwent renovations in order to be transformed into a mint museum, which lasted from 1973 to 1994. Original circulation and room configurations were restored in the public areas, while office spaces were updated with new electrical wiring, fixtures, and suspended ceilings. The tension between manufacturing facility and public building was resolved by transforming formerly industrial parts of the building to office and storage areas, while public areas remained so.

The photograph of the new Mint at San Francisco completed in 1937 in a "stripped classicism" style by Gilbert Stanlay Underwood. Both the old and the new Mint buildings are included on the National register of Historic Places. (National Archives)

Currently, the city of San Francisco is working with developers and community organizations to reopen the Old Mint to the public. Their challenge will be to make the building not only economically viable but also�and more importantly�culturally relevant once again. The trick is to find uses which guarantee public access to the most architecturally important spaces in the building while providing financial returns through commercial or private uses in less essential rooms. The city�s smart effort to encourage reuse of old buildings and sensitive infill projects in the neighborhood of the Mint speaks to the desirability of making an example of the Mint as the city grows and faces the challenges of preserving its architectural legacy.

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