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Butchertown, South of Market
San Francisco's original Butchertown was situated in this location South of Market, or South of the Slot, as it was then known. But as the area became more residential in the 1860s the disagreeable odors from the slaughterhouses forced City Hall to pass an ordinance telling the butchers they had to leave. Butchertown moved to the newly constructed Long Bridge in the Mission Bay District. This new location served Butchertown well as drover ships using vaqueros unloaded their cattle right into waterside pens for holding before trains took the livestock and butchered meat away.

San Francisco butchering in the 1800s was a carefully regulated industry with the slaughterhouses being throughly scrubbed twice a day. It was also a profitable industry with butchers earning a generous $60 to $100 a month while slaughterers could make an astounding $175 per month. Butchertown and Long Bridge were destroyed in the Great 1906 Earthquake and Fire but today some old time San Franciscans still refer to 1st Street in Mission Bay as Beef Avenue.
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