The Emperor Norton Trust

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

RESEARCH • EDUCATION • ADVOCACY

Filtering by Tag: Santa Rosa

"Harbor Emperor" Switcheroo?

June 26, 2025  /  John Lumea

In 1968, Crowley Maritime built a new 500-passenger sightseeing vessel for its Red & White fleet based at Fisherman’s Wharf.

Having decided to name its new vessel the Harbor Emperor, Crowley commissioned Elwin Millerick, a folk sculptor in Santa Rosa, Calif., to hand-carve a 5-foot-tall wooden figurehead of Emperor Norton for the bow.

The Emperor Norton figurehead has been photographed thousands of times over the decades and has become a fond feature of the modern Norton pop culture of San Francisco.

Pull up a chair for my theory that — at a minimum — the head and the hat of today’s Harbor Emperor figurehead are not original to 1968 and that — whether because of an accident, vandalism, or rot — they were substantially modified or switched out entirely sometime in the 1970s.

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categories / Research, Original sources, Tributes, ARENA
tags / sculpture, statue, figurehead, wood, hand-carved, Harbor Emperor, vessel, sightseeing, Crowley, Red & White, Blue & Gold, Elwin Millerick, Santa Rosa, 1968, 1970s, 1979, 1985, 1997, 2005, 2012

Norton Biographer Allen Stanley Lane’s Presentation Copy Twofer

June 22, 2021  /  John Lumea

Allen Lane wrote the first of only two book-length biographies of Emperor Norton that have been published.

The book hit the shops in February 1939.

Last week, I acquired a very special presentation copy of Lane’s biography. In fact, it’s the copy that Lane gifted to his parents on their anniversary, when the book was published.

Information in the inscription prompted me to do some digging into Lane’s story — something that long has been something of a mystery in Norton circles. What I discovered will be new, I think, to those who know Lane only as a Norton biographer.

Read on to learn more about Lane — and to get the second part of the twofer.

Includes an image of Lane’s inscription and a rare photograph of Lane that he included with the book.

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categories / Research, Original sources
tags / Allen Stanley Lane, book, presentation copy, inscription, San Diego, Santa Rosa, Los Angeles, Sacramento, organist, theater, Tivoli, Metropolitan, Senator, Hippodrome, Caxton Printers, E Clampus Vitus, plaque, William Gordon Huff, George Napoleon Lane, Laura Pearl Brown, postmaster, 1885, 1886, 1889, 1924, 1928, 1939, 1967

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