The San Francisco Mint is a branch of the United States Mint and was
opened in 1854 to serve the gold mines of the California Gold Rush. It
quickly outgrew its first building and moved into a new one in 1874.
This building, the Old United States Mint, also known affectionately
as The Granite Lady, is one of the few that survived the great 1906
San Francisco earthquake. It served until 1937, when the present
facility was opened.Within the first year of its operation, the San
Francisco mint turned $4 million in gold bullion into coins. The
second building, completed in 1874, was designed by Alfred B. Mullett
in a conservative Greek Revival style with a sober Doric order. The
building had a central pedimented portico flanked by projecting wings
in an E-shape; it was built around a completely enclosed central
courtyard that contained a wellâ€"the features that saved it during
the fire of 1906, when the heat melted the plate glass windows and
exploded sandstone and granite blocks with which it was faced. The
building sat on a concrete and granite foundation, designed to thwart
tunneling into its vaults, which at the time of the 1906 fire held
$300 million, fully a third of the United States' gold reserves.
Efforts by Superintendent of the Mint, Frank A. Leach, and his men
preserved the building and the bullion that then backed the nation's
currency. The mint resumed operation soon thereafter, continuing until
1937.In 1961 the Old Mint, as it had become known, was designated a
National Historic Landmark. It also became a California Historical
Landmark in 1974.The given name of "The Granite Lady" is somewhat of a
misnomer as most of the building is made from sandstone. While the
base/basement of the building is made of granite, the entire external
and upper stories are made of sandstone. The Granite Lady was a
marketing term given in the 1970s that stuck. San Francisco Mint Biography, NetWorth, Height, Age, Weight, Family, Married, Son, Daughter