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Engraving of a California Gold Rush lodging room with lodgers, 1858

Photograph of an engraving from the book, "California Life Illustrated." For more information see info. file or text accompanying negative which describes the illustration,"[CR][CR]"Those who "put up at the hotel, at thirty dollars per week," found no soft beds in rosewood, with downy pillows, but occupied "bunks" made of rough boards, on the side of the wall, shelving one above another, as in emigrant ships. I have seen not only the walls of hotel lofts thus lined with bunks, but large cribs of them, extending up to the roof of the house, covering the entire floor, except narrow passages giving access to them. Sheets were a superfluity not indulged in; pillows were of straw; mattresses, where they had any, were of the same; but in many cases the sleeper lay on the board which held him up off his fellow-sleeper beneath. I tried one night to sleep in one, which, unfortunately for, was covered with cross slats, evidently designed for a mattress; but the last-mentioned very important article, in such a case, was not there. Turning and rolling on these slats, I longed for the morning. The soft side of a board, compared with them, would have been a luxury.[CR] To the foregoing sleeping arrangements, if you add a few coarse gray blankets, you will have an original California lodging-house furnished. I heard it positively asserted by many, who had been made tremblingly sensible of the fact, that in some houses a few pair of blankets supplied a houseful of lodgers. As the weary fellows "turned in" one after another, they were comfortably covered till they would fall into a sound sleep, and then the blankets were removed to cover a new recruit, and thus they were passed round for the accommodation of the whole company. By way of variety, the adventurous lodgers in those pioneer hotels were frequently visited by the third plague of Egypt, accompanied by a liliputian host of the flea tribe, whose stimulating influence upon their subjects is represented in the accompanying cut. Any man who is not proof against fleas, or who cannot effect a good insurance on his skin, had better keep away from old Spanish towns and Indian villages..."p. 164-167. CALIFORNIA LODGING-ROOM.

U. S. National Park Service

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San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, Code: SAFR

NPS Museum Number Catalog : SAFR 21374
Local Park number : P93-065, Series 1, File Unit 10, Item A10.26681

San Francisco Maritime Museum classified photograph collection, 1575-1984
San Francisco Maritime Digital Museum Archival Collection

Title: Guide to the San Francisco Maritime Museum classified photograph collection, 1575-1984 located on the Online Archives of California website.
URL: http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8hm5f30/

09/27/2016

01/01/1858 - 12/30/1858

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San Francisco Maritime Museum

Organization: San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park
Address: 2 Marina Boulevard, Building E, 2nd Floor, San Francisco, California 94123
Email: safr_maritime_library@nps.gov

Friday, January 20, 2017 9:32:58 PM

Friday, January 20, 2017 9:32:58 PM

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