F I R S TP R E V598NEXTLAST

The Site of Meiggs Wharf
Before the construction of the Great Seawall the area on which Fisherman's Wharf sits was part of the Bay. In 1850 Harry Meiggs, San Francisco's first entrepreneur, took $50,000 and built a Meiggs Wharf, a huge pier extending out 1,600 feet into the Bay. In many ways his wharf, with curiosity shops and restaurants attracting visitors, became a predecessor to Fisherman's Wharf. Within one year Meiggs turned his $50,000 in seed money into $500,000 and by 1852 Meiggs was the richest man on the West Coast. He used the money to develop much of North Beach and became a much-admired civic booster. However deflating property values following the Gold Rush caused Meiggs to skip town in 1854 owing hundreds of thousands of dollars in land mortgages. But that was not the end of the story, in the 1870s Meiggs once again amassed a huge fortune, this time in Peru, and later repaid the debts to all those he owed in San Francisco. In 1874 the California legislature officially exonerated "Honest Harry" Meiggs.
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