RECENT RESEARCH — A newly unearthed photograph showing the north side of the 600 block of Commercial Street, San Francisco, in the aftermath of the earthquake and fires of 1906 reveals, for the first time, visual evidence of the fate of the building that housed the Eureka Lodgings, where Emperor Norton lived from 1864–65 until his death in 1880. Our analysis of the photo sharpens the focus on the identities and locations of the buildings along this stretch — and exactly what each building suffered in 1906. Includes our highly researched new infographic that can be used as a tool for understanding the history of this location.

The Emperor Norton Trust

TO HONOR THE LIFE + ADVANCE THE LEGACY OF JOSHUA ABRAHAM NORTON

RESEARCH • EDUCATION • ADVOCACY

Filtering by Tag: California State Library

New Life for an 1879 Drawing of Emperor Norton

February 19, 2017 / John Lumea

On 9 November 1879 — just two months before Emperor Norton's death — the San Francisco Chronicle published a Sunday front-page profile of the Emperor that was based on rare interview with the Emperor himself.

The profile was accompanied by a lovely drawing of the Emperor that was reproduced 60 years later for Allen Stanley Lane's 1939 biography, Emperor Norton: The Mad Monarch of America — but that has languished since then.

The Emperor's Bridge Campaign has had a new photographic print made of the drawing and has added a hi-res scan of it to ARENA, our digital ARchive of Emperor Norton in Art.

Learn more and see the drawing, after the flip.

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categories / Original sources, Legacy, Research
tags / art, San Francisco Chronicle, ARENA, California State Library

Two Traces of Allen Stanley Lane

March 08, 2016 / John Lumea

For nearly 50 years, Allen Stanley Lane's 1939 biography of Emperor Norton was recognized as the standard reference on the subject. But, as often as Lane is cited in Norton studies and within "the Norton community" more generally, it appears that there is no online record of Lane — apart from references to the fact that he wrote his book.

There appears to be no mention of Lane's personal life — or of anything else he might have written or produced about Emperor Norton.

So it's been gratifying, over the last couple weeks, to have been "gifted" with a couple more documentary signs of Lane's existence.

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categories / Research
tags / Allen Stanley Lane, Knott's Berry Farm, Ghost Town News, David Warren Ryder, California State Library, William Drury, William M. Kramer, Gwen Smith