In the mid- to late- 1800s, San Francisco’s Jackson Square historic district – the epicenter of the famed Barbary Coast – housed merchants, banks, saloons, gold diggers, dance halls, lodging houses, cigar factories, pleasure-seeking sailors and an array of shady and legendary characters. Slapped together in the heat of the Gold Rush and erected on fill on top of abandoned ships, the area was wholly destroyed in the Earthquake and Fire of 1906. Most of the structures were rebuilt in the same style and to the same scale shortly thereafter. Still, the district began a slow decline and languished for decades until the 1980s when high-end designers and artisan retailers rediscovered the vintage beauty of the area.