F I R S TP R E V383NEXTLAST

Memorials, Mayors and Alcaldes
Prior to 1850 San Francisco's Chief Executive Officer was an alcalde. In Spain, alcaldes were sheriffs or justices of the peace. For sixteen one-year terms, San Francisco was governed by eleven Mexican alcaldes and five American alcaldes. The city's first alcalde was Francisco de Haro in 1835. His tombstone at the Mission Delores cemetery is pictured above. The first mayor, John White Geary, was inaugurated in 1850. There have been forty mayors since Geary up until the present mayor, Gavin Newsom. Like most cities there have been bad mayors, such as the shockingly corrupt Eugene Schmitz, and good mayors, like the beloved James 'Sunny Jim' Rolph, Jr. Pictured above is a bust of the city's previous mayor, the flamboyant Willie Brown, San Francisco's first African-American mayor. The popular Brown currently co-hosts a morning radio show with comedian Will Durst on a local radio station
[ MAP K-11 & H-13 ]