Emperor Norton Plaque

In eighteen fifty-nine, a bankrupt businessman named Joshua Abraham Norton walked into the offices of the San Francisco Bulletin and placed a notice declaring himself Norton the First, Emperor of the United States. And here's the thing that makes San Francisco the city it is: everyone played along. For twenty-one years.

Norton was an English-born immigrant who had made and lost a fortune trying to corner the rice market. The financial ruin apparently unhinged something, and he reinvented himself as a self-proclaimed monarch. He wore an elaborate military uniform with gold epaulettes, carried a ceremonial sword, and walked the streets of San Francisco with two dogs, Bummer and Lazarus, who became celebrities in their own right.

Restaurants fed him for free. Theaters reserved seats for him. The city's shops and businesses accepted the currency he printed — Norton Dollars — which had no legal standing whatsoever but which people honored because it was funnier and more interesting than refusing. He issued imperial proclamations, some of which were published in the newspapers. He ordered the construction of a bridge connecting San Francisco to Oakland and another connecting to Marin County — decades before the Bay Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge were actually built. He was crazy. He was also right.

One night, Norton reportedly stopped a race riot. An anti-Chinese mob was forming in the streets, heading toward Chinatown. Norton stepped in front of them, bowed his head, and began reciting the Lord's Prayer. The mob dispersed. Whether the story is precisely true or embellished by legend, it captured something real about his moral authority in the city.

When Norton died in eighteen eighty, ten thousand people attended his funeral. Ten thousand. For a penniless eccentric who called himself Emperor. The headline in the Chronicle read: "Le Roi Est Mort" — The King is Dead. San Francisco has always loved its characters, but nobody topped Norton.