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Ghirardelli Square, From the Bay
One of San Francisco's most popular tourist attractions is Ghirardelli Square, situated on the city's northern waterfront. Before becoming a shopping and dining center in 1964 it was the Pioneer Woolen Mill which had suppled the Union Army with blankets throughout the Civil War. But after the war the mill found it had a problem, anti-Chinese sentiment was coming to a boil in the area and the Pioneer Woolen Mill employed over 500 Chinese workers to man its looms, sewing machines, and cards.

In 1882 an angry white mob surrounded the mill chanting that the Chinese must go. Unable to withstand the crowd hysteria and certain violence the mill owners regretfully dismissed all the Chinese workers that had helped build the company and who had produced three and a half million tons of wool blankets. The higher wages paid to the replacement white workers prevented the Pioneer Woolen Mill from competing with other mills and it closed operations in 1889. Four years later in 1893 the square started production once again, this time crushing cocoa beans for a young chocolatier named Domenico Ghirardelli.
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