Nob Hill

One of San Francisco’s original “Seven Hills”

The invention of the cable car in 1871 and the railroad and mining fortunes converged fortuitously for the development of Nob Hill. Sumptuous mansions of the “Big Four”, Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker, Collis Huntington and Mark Hopkins were all to be found here.

Robert Lewis Steveson, described this neighborhood, “The great net of straight thoroughfares lying at right angles, east and west and north and south, over the shoulders of Nob Hill, the Hill of palaces, must certainly be counted the best part of San Francisco. It is there that the millionaires are gathered together vying with each other on display. From thence, looking down over the business wards of the city, we can descry a building with a little belfry, and that is the Stock Exchange, the heart of San Francisco: a great pump we might call it, continually pumping up the savings of the lower quarters to the pockets of the millionaires on the Hill.”