Free Black Fire by Robert Graysmith

enormous rats, of which the city was particularly rich, clogged the most frequented arteries. By day the up-and-down streets were dangerous. By night they were deadly.
    Midblock, Broderick found himself trapped ankle deep in mud. “Why does a city of millionaires keep its roads in such disrepair,” he moaned. “Surely, planking could be gotten from somewhere?” He conjectured that the roads were kept in such poor condition because the townsfolk put all their energy into the accumulation of gold. Nearby a street inspector and his two assistants balanced on planks as they carted buckets of sand and armloads of chaparral to fill in a quicksand pit. “It’s a hopeless job,” Broderick said. “By tonight, the mud pools will be wider and deep as ever.” Broderick and the boy had gone only a few steps before they stubbed their toes on a protruding bundle of mill saws. Uneven planks encased in jagged sheets of zinc cut into Broderick’s boots. New boots, like oiled clothing, were hard to come by. The interminable rainy season left local stores so understocked that one advertised knee-high boots at $96 an ounce . “Let’s cross to Kearny here,” he said. “There won’t be a safe passage to the opposite side for another three blocks.” Only three makeshift walks existed in town: the upper side of Kearny Street between Sacramento and Clay in front of Barrett & Sherwood’s jewelry store, part of the west side of Montgomery between Clay and Washington, and Montgomery Street in the section by Burgoyne and Company’s bank.
    As they crossed, Broderick looked both ways. Recently a man was knocked off his horse on Kearny Street merely for undertaking to ride over a fellow who had no horse. To secure a foothold, folks ruffled the slippery battleground with iron and wooden hoops, tons of wine sieves, barrel tops, and discarded shirts and trousers. Dozens of men,horses, and wagons black with mud churned and beat the swamp until it was thick glue. Heavily laden wagons pulled by reliable London drays inched along. A pile of casks and barrels blocked a sidewalk that was only a rutted dent. People, like dancers, moved a step at a time along a bridge of bottles, drinking as they went and providing empties for future stepping-stones. Comically dignified men tiptoed to the other side of Market Street only to plunge full face into the morass before they reached it. “Pick, jump, stride, and totter,” a citizen groused, “and we got something that no doubt looks somewhat like a street on a map, but is not recognizable in its natural form although they call it a street. All we succeed in is getting stuck.”
    Each segment of the planked Kearny Street sidewalk was different. There was a stretch of packing cases, window shutters, and a mosaic of sides and ends covered with tin. In front of Hanlon’s Saloon, forty kegs had been hammered into the mud as a makeshift sidewalk that ended so abruptly unwary pedestrians plunged full length into the mud. “The narrow Kearny Street sidewalk is fearfully and wonderfully made,” Broderick said. They turned onto the south side of Clay Street between Montgomery and Kearny where the city had laid its first sidewalk—stringers and springy barrel staves. The Montgomery Street sidewalk from Clay to Jackson Street was the oddest of all: two blocks made from pianos. “The fill was composed of heavy crates, big machinery tied together, and discarded cook stoves,” Broderick said. “When the stoves sank, the city plugged the holes with a shipload of damaged pianos, then layered over blades twined together to make a loose crust that lack the gravity to sink further.” Some streets were partially planked or had rugged cobblestones, but mostly it was mud and more mud. When the rains stopped, prevailing winds whipped the dunes over the roads. Then it was sand and more sand. “I wanted you to see firsthand,” Broderick said, “that the unlit streets offer a blackness deeper than a moonless country road.