Bella Union

Bella Union (San Francisco). Opening on Portsmouth Square as a combination gambling house, saloon, and variety theatre in October 1849, its first attraction was a minstrel show. The tenor of the establishment was set on opening night when one of the performers was shot and killed in an altercation that followed the show, but this very roughness remained part of the house's singular appeal. A San Francisco historian has noted, “What [audiences] wanted from the Bella Union—comfort, liquor, handsome women, entertainment without ornament—they could get nowhere else . . . the free‐and‐easy atmosphere, the laugh‐and‐grow‐fat attitude, the pungent ribaldry of the Bella Union could be had elsewhere only in duplicate of the original.” Gambling was abolished in 1856, and the house became known as a “melodeon,” a local term for a vaudeville theatre. Rebuilt after several fires, the original building was demolished in 1868, and the proprietor, Samuel Tetlow, opened a new theatre on its site. It remained active until 1895, when it was converted into a museum. The structure was destroyed in the earthquake and fire of 1906. Among the important performers who began to learn their trade there were Edward Harrigan and Charlotte Crabtree.