Central Tower is a 21-story office building at Market and

Third Third or 3rd may refer to: Numbers * 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3 * , a fraction of one third * 1⁄60 of a ''second'', or 1⁄3600 of a ''minute'' Places * 3rd Street (disambiguation) * Third Avenue (disambiguation) * Hi ...

Streets in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the ...

. The building has undergone numerous renovations since its completion in 1898 as the Call Building. It was later known as the Spreckels Building.

History

In 1890,

M. H. de Young Michael Henry de Young (September 30, 1849 – February 15, 1925) was an American journalist and businessman. Early life De Young was born in St. Louis, Missouri. The family was Jewish. Michael in later years claimed that his father was a Balt ...

, owner of the ''

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The pap ...

'', built San Francisco's first skyscraper, the

Chronicle Building The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The pape ...

, to house his newspaper. In response,

John D. Spreckels John Diedrich Spreckels (August 16, 1853 – June 7, 1926), the son of German-American industrialist Claus Spreckels, founded a transportation and real estate empire in San Diego, California, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The entre ...

and his father

Claus Spreckels Adolph Claus J. Spreckels (July 9, 1828 – December 26, 1908) (his last name has also been misspelled as Spreckles) was a major industrialist in Hawai'i during the kingdom, republican and territorial periods of the islands' history. He also ...

purchased the ''

San Francisco Call ''The San Francisco Call'' was a newspaper that served San Francisco, California. Because of a succession of mergers with other newspapers, the paper variously came to be called ''The San Francisco Call & Post'', the ''San Francisco Call-Bullet ...

'' in 1895 and commissioned a tower of their own that would dwarf the Chronicle Building. In September 1895, ''The Call'' wrote: The building eventually stood 315 feet (96 m) tall with an ornate baroque

dome A dome () is an architectural element similar to the hollow upper half of a sphere. There is significant overlap with the term cupola, which may also refer to a dome or a structure on top of a dome. The precise definition of a dome has been a ...

—which housed the offices of

Reid & Reid Reid & Reid, also known as Reid Brothers, was an American architectural and engineering firm that was active from 1880 to 1932. Established in Indiana by Canadian immigrants, the firm moved to the West Coast and became was the most prominent f ...

, the building's architects—and four corner

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome. The word derives, via Italian, fr ...

s when construction finished in 1898. It was the tallest building west of the Mississippi River for many years. The structure was badly burned and damaged by the

1906 San Francisco earthquake At 05:12 Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (''Extreme''). High-intensity s ...

, although the building did not collapse. After the fire, ''The Call'' reopened its offices at a new location,

The Montgomery The Montgomery may refer to one of the following buildings: *The Montgomery (Chicago) in Illinois, United States *The Montgomery (San Francisco) in California, United States See also *Montgomery (disambiguation) Montgomery refers to: People For ...

, and the former Call Building became known as the Spreckels Building. In 1938 Albert Roller completely refurbished Central Tower. The building's height was reduced to 298 feet (91 m) and the number of stories was increased from 15 to 21; the ornate dome and the cupolas atop the building were removed. File:Call building.jpg, The Call from Kearny Street, 1905, with

Lotta's Fountain Lotta's fountain is a fountain at the intersection of Market Street, where Geary and Kearny Streets connect in downtown San Francisco, California. It was commissioned by actress Lotta Crabtree in 1875 as a gift to the city of San Francisco, an ...

at lower left File:Call Bldg on fire, San Francisco earthquake cph.3b04298.jpg, On fire after the 1906 earthquake File:No. 314. Call Building crop.jpg, Aftermath of the fire

References

External links

* {{Navboxes , title=Central Tower articles and topics , state=collapsed , list1= {{Financial District, San Francisco {{Buildings in San Francisco timeline {{Buildings in San Francisco {{Buildings west of Mississippi timeline {{Buildings in California timeline Skyscraper office buildings in San Francisco Financial District, San Francisco Market Street (San Francisco) Office buildings completed in 1898 1898 establishments in California Reid & Reid buildings Art Deco architecture in California