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| Dumpville
was the name loosely applied to the officially designated waste
disposal site lying along Berry Street, from the late 1860's
to 1895. Dumpville was San Francisco's solution to the problem
of what to do with the growing amount of refuse produced by
its citizens and industries as a result of San Francisco's population
growth. This population increase, combined with the economic
depression of the 1870's, resulted in Dumpville becoming a place
where the poor and impoverished (mostly single middle-aged men) built
make-shift shanties for shelter and sifted through the rubble,
searching for anything of value. |
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| The
depression was also a time when many goods were in limited supply
and many items commanded resale value, such as bottles, tin
cans, cloth rags, sacks, and iron scraps. The collection of
such rubble became a living for many men, most of whom worked
for self-made bosses or commanders-in-chief, and conflicts
increasingly erupted between unorganized, independent scavengers.
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| Over
time, Dumpville grew into to an expansive refuge for downtrodden
derelicts, hobos, and a number of unsavory criminals including
over 150 feuding squatters suspected of a range of petty crimes,
prompting the police to crack down. On November 9, 1895 Dumpville
was burned down by a police task force and soon covered with
fill, resulting the present day Battery Street. |
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