Devil's Acre

DEVIL'S ACRE & BATTLE ROW

"The Center of Sin in San Francisco"

From the mid-1880s onward, the diagonally cut block
bounded by Broadway, Kearny, and Columbus came
to be known locally as the "Devil's Acre," a place
described by the San Francisco Call in 1886 as "the
resort and abiding place of the worst criminals in town."
It was here that vice and vulgarity reigned supreme,
a district of depraved citizens and disreputable dens
aptly characterized as "the lowest spot of its kind in
the city." Perhaps the most notorious strip of the Devil's
Acre was the eastern side of Kearny Street, known as
"Battle Row;" a line of dens that reportedly "catered to
the lowest of the Barbary Coast hangers-on."