The
San Francisco Mint is a
branch-United States:The original and main Mint of the United States Mint, has been located in Philadelphia , since 1793. Its current facility, Philadelphia's fourth, opened in 1969.U.S...
of the
United States MintThe United States Mint primarily produces circulating coinage for the United States to conduct its trade and commerce. The main Mint facility is located in Washington, D.C., and branch facilities are located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Denver, Colorado; San Francisco, California; and West...
, and was opened in 1854 to serve the gold mines of the
California Gold RushThe California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was discovered by James Wilson Marshall at Sutter's Mill, in Coloma, California. News of the discovery soon spread, resulting in some 300,000 men, women, and children coming to California from the rest of the United States and...
. It quickly outgrew its first building and moved into a new one in 1874. This building, the
Old United States Mint also known affectionately as
The Granite Lady, is one of the few that survived the great
1906 San Francisco earthquakeThe San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was a major earthquake that struck San Francisco, CA and the coast of Northern California at 5:12 A.M. on Wednesday, April 18, 1906. The most widely accepted estimate for the magnitude of the earthquake is a moment magnitude of 7.8; however, other values have...
. It served until 1937, when the present facility was opened.
Within the first year of its operation, the San Francisco mint turned $4 million in gold bullion into coins.
The
San Francisco Mint is a
branch-United States:The original and main Mint of the United States Mint, has been located in Philadelphia , since 1793. Its current facility, Philadelphia's fourth, opened in 1969.U.S...
of the
United States MintThe United States Mint primarily produces circulating coinage for the United States to conduct its trade and commerce. The main Mint facility is located in Washington, D.C., and branch facilities are located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Denver, Colorado; San Francisco, California; and West...
, and was opened in 1854 to serve the gold mines of the
California Gold RushThe California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was discovered by James Wilson Marshall at Sutter's Mill, in Coloma, California. News of the discovery soon spread, resulting in some 300,000 men, women, and children coming to California from the rest of the United States and...
. It quickly outgrew its first building and moved into a new one in 1874. This building, the
Old United States Mint also known affectionately as
The Granite Lady, is one of the few that survived the great
1906 San Francisco earthquakeThe San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was a major earthquake that struck San Francisco, CA and the coast of Northern California at 5:12 A.M. on Wednesday, April 18, 1906. The most widely accepted estimate for the magnitude of the earthquake is a moment magnitude of 7.8; however, other values have...
. It served until 1937, when the present facility was opened.
Old Mint
Within the first year of its operation, the San Francisco mint turned $4 million in gold bullion into coins. The second building, completed in 1874, was designed by
Alfred B. MullettAlfred Built Mullett was an American architect who served from 1866 to 1874 as Supervising Architect. His work followed trends in Victorian style, evolving from the Greek Revival to Second Empire to Richardsonian Romanesque....
in a conservative Greek Revival style with a sober
Doric orderThe Doric order was one of the three orders or organizational systems of Ancient Greek or classical architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian....
. The building had a central
pedimentThis article is about the architectural element. For the landform, see Pediment .A pediment is a classical architectural element consisting of the triangular section found above the horizontal structure , typically supported by columns. The gable end of the pediment is surrounded by the cornice...
ed
porticoA portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls...
flanked by projecting wings in an E-shape; it was built round a completely enclosed central courtyard that contained a well—the features that saved it during the fire of 1906, when the heat melted the plate glass windows and exploded sandstone and granite blocks with which it was faced. The building sat on a concrete and granite foundation, designed to thwart tunneling into its vaults, which at the time of the 1906 fire held $300 million, fully a third of the United States' gold reserves. Heroic efforts by Superintendent of the Mint, Frank Leach, and his men preserved the building and the bullion that backed the nation's currency. The mint resumed operation soon thereafter, continuing until 1937.
In 1961 the Old Mint, as it had become known, was designated a
National Historic LandmarkA National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance. All NHLs are listed in the National Register of Historic Places...
.
The given name of "The Granite Lady" is somewhat of a misnomer as most of the building is made from sandstone. While the base/basement of the building is made of granite, the entire external and upper stories are made of sandstone. The Granite Lady was a marketing term given in the 1970s that stuck.
The Old Mint was open to visitors until 1993. In 2003 the federal government sold the structure to the City of San Francisco for one dollar—an 1879 silver dollar struck at the mint— for use as the
Museum of the City of San FranciscoThe Museum of the City of San Francisco, operated by the San Francisco Historical Society currently has exhibits at Pier 45 and San Francisco City Hall...
. In the fall of 2005, ground was broken for renovations that would turn the central court into a glass-enclosed galleria. The Museum is scheduled to open in 2012, but the Old Mint is used for special events, some open to the public, prior to the Museum's official opening.
New Mint
The new Mint was opened in 1937. Beginning in 1955, circulating coinage from
San FranciscoSan Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. It is the eighth most densely populated city in the U.S. and is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San...
was suspended for 13 years. In 1968, it took over most
proof coinageProof coinage means special early samples of a coin issue, historically made for checking the dies and for archival purposes, but nowadays often struck in greater numbers specially for coin collectors . Many countries now issue them....
production from the
Philadelphia MintThe Philadelphia Mint was created from the need to establish a national identity and the needs of commerce in the United States. This led the Founding Fathers of the United States to make an establishment of a continental national mint a main priority after the ratification of the Constitution of...
, but continued striking a supplemental circulating coinage from 1968 through 1974. Since 1975, the San Francisco Mint has been used only for proof coinage, with the exception of the
Susan B. Anthony dollarThe Susan B. Anthony dollar is a United States coin minted from 1979 to 1981, and again in 1999. It depicts women's suffrage campaigner Susan B. Anthony...
from 1979-81 and a portion of the mintage of
centsThe Lincoln cent is the current one cent coin of the US Dollar. It was adopted in 1909, replacing the Indian Head cent. Its obverse, featuring a bust of Abraham Lincoln , has been in continuous usage...
in the early 1980s. The dollars bear a mintmark of an "S", but the cents are otherwise indistinguishable from those minted at Philadelphia (which bear no mintmarks, unlike those years' proof cents from San Francisco and circulation cents from
DenverThe Denver Mint is a branch of the United States Mint that stuck its first coins on February 1, 1906. The mint is still operating and producing coins for circulation, as well as mint sets and commemorative coins. Coins produced at the Denver Mint bear a D mint mark...
). It is located at 155 Hermann Street, but does not allow visitors.