Hudson's Bay Company Headquarters

The fur catch this bronze calls declining had already cost the Central Valley's people more than the plaque counts. A Hudson's Bay Company brigade led by John Work, trapping the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys in 1832 and 1833, is the likeliest carrier of the malaria that swept their villages in 1833; estimates of the dead run from twenty thousand to more than thirty thousand. The bronze weighs the company's California venture only in profits and in the British intentions people suspected.

What the plaque says

Hudson's Bay Company On this block, then on Yerba Buena's waterfront, stood the California headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company. In 1841 their chief trader, William G. Rae, purchased the property and started operations. This venture caused wide speculation about British intentions. Inadequate profits, a declining fur catch, and pressure of U.S. expansion caused Hudson's Bay Company to end California operations. California Registered Historical Landmark No. 819 Plaque placed by the State Department of Parks and Recreation in cooperation with the Redwood Coast Outpost of the "Westerners", April 17, 1968.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Muir Beach Overlook — 11 mi
  A cliff edge on Highway 1, and the concrete dugouts where two-man crews watched the sea after Pearl Harbor.
• Muir Woods National Monument — 11 mi
  A redwood canyon saved from a reservoir by a gift, and named for a man who had been there once.
• Earthquake Trail — 27 mi
  A short loop along the San Andreas, where a broken fence shows how far Point Reyes moved in under a minute in 1906.
• Kule Loklo — 28 mi
  A Coast Miwok village built in the 1970s to honour a people its builders were told had died out. They had not.

More markers nearby

• Site of First U.S. Branch Mint — steps away
• Site of Brick Building of the Firm of Mellus and Howard — steps away
• Landing Place of Captain J. B. Montgomery — steps away
• Western Headquarters of Russell, Majors, and Waddell — steps away