This is a long way of saying that I didn’t find the specific 12 bars I was looking for.
In the great book Trespassers at the Golden Gate, the author mentions The Athenaeum, an association of Black citizens on San Francisco. It was founded in 1853.
This probably came up when the book (a historical recreation of early SF) was discussing the amazing Mary Ellen Pleasant, who helped fund it.
Searching for more information, I came across this document (PDF) on Black history in SF. This is the relevant section:
The Athenaeum
Members of San Francisco’s Black community convened in July 1853 at a house located at 273
Washington Street (building no longer extant) to found the city’s first social club/gathering place for
African Americans.
Called The Athenaeum, the institute housed the Athenaeum Saloon on the first floor and the Athenaeum Institute on the second floor. Here, African Americans would meet and socialize
over drinks and games in the saloon, which was managed by Monroe Taylor and James Riker (with
financial backing from Mary Ellen Pleasant), and reconvene upstairs for lectures, debates, and other
intellectual activities.
The Athenaeum Institute’s first director was a businessman named Jacob Francis
and its secretary was William H. Newby, a well-known daguerreotypist from New York City.
Its founders included several prominent businessmen and abolitionists, including J.H. Townsend, Mifflin W.
Gibbs, James R. Starkey, W.H. Harper, and E.R. Johnson. Within a year of its founding, the organization
had 85 dues-paying members, $2,000 in funds, and 800 books in its collection.
Over the following decades the Athenaeum Institute hosted debates, meetings, and published reports
describing the activities of San Francisco’s African American community.
In 1854, it published a directory
of businesses and institutions founded by members of San Francisco’s Black community, including two
joint-stock companies, four boot and shoemakers, four clothing stores, eight express and livery wagon
companies, two furniture shops, 12 public houses, two restaurants, two billiard saloons, 16 barber
shops, two bathhouses, one reading room and library, one Masonic lodge, and one brass band. The
directory also tallied the rough numbers of African Americans employed in various occupations in San
Francisco, including 100 mechanics, 20 draymen, 100 porters, 150 stewards, 300 waiters, and 200
cooks.
Today’s African American Historical and Cultural Society is descended from The Athenaeum.
12 Black-owned bars! I was psyched and wanted to find this directory. I followed the footnote to the Daily Alta California newspaper archives for April 7, 1854 and found the reference:
But that’s where I hit a dead end. As far as I know there is no archive of the Anathaeum’s meetings/publications where I can find the addresses of those 12 bars.
It’s a shame because I really wanted to make a map!
Speaking of maps, the location where the Athenaeum was founded, 273 Washington Street, is right about where Bar Sprezzatura is located today (if the street numbers didn’t change, which did happen a lot and I need to look that up.)
I think the location of the Athenaeum was across the street from Mary Ellen Pleasant’s boarding house, which is about where Rose Pak MUNI station is now if I am correct.
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