Gray Brothers Quarry at Corona Heights
Unfinished History
1890s View from Kite (Solari) Hill across upper Eureka Valley towards Mt. Olympus. Gray Brothers Corona Heights Quarry and Brick Factory on south slope of hill.
Photo: Private Collection, San Francisco, CA
The Gray Brothers gained some infamy in turn of the century San Francisco, for they also operated destructive, noisy, dirty quarries on Telegraph Hill and at today's 30th Street and Castro. The Gray Brothers Quarry and brick factory on Corona Heights above bucolic Eureka Valley was established in the 1890s. All this territory was once part of Rancho San Miguel.
By 1899, they had removed tons of rock and produced tens of thousands of bricks, creating the blasted landscape at left (seen from the hill between Eureka and Noe Valleys just west of Dolores Park). The Gray Brothers also quarried Telegraph Hill and Billy Goat Hill above Noe Valley.
Photo: Private collection, San Francisco, CA
Corona Heights from the north, looking south, 1926.
Photo: Private collection, San Francisco, CA
The Gray Brothers Brick Factory (on the right-hand slope of the hill, center) on Corona Heights as seen from Kite (Solari) Hill in 1900
Photo: Private collection, San Francisco, CA