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Policeman James Fenton is fatally shot in Oakland by T.S. Boyle, a safe-blower he was trying to arrest. A barber, F.S. Shiell, walks out of his shop, disarms Boyle, shoots him dead, and returns to shave a customer in his chair. — Jan. 5
A former police sergeant sues to get back $1,300 in bribes he had received from Chinese gamblers. — Feb. 5
Dr. Rupert Blue's report on "Butchertown,"the city's slaughterhouse district, concludes that the yards and abattoirs are "so unsanitary they are not only dangerous to health but also exceedingly offensive to the residents of the neighborhood and to all persons traveling in that direction." — Feb. 9
Twenty-eight workers are killed when 10,000 pounds of explosives blow up at the Dupont de Nemours powder plant in Pinole. The force of the explosion is felt for 20 miles. — Feb. 21
An explosion rips through the Oakland home of James L. Gallagher, a former San Francisco supervisor who had testified a day earlier in the graft trial of Tirey Ford, chief counsel of the United Railroads, San Francisco's trolley franchisee. Gallagher, his wife, sister and brother-in-law are injured by the blast from a cache of dynamite set on the front porch. A former St. Louis police officer, more recently employed as a Pinkerton detective is later arrested for the bombing. — April 22
A jury takes only six minutes to acquit Tirey Ford for the alleged bribery of former supervisor Daniel G. Coleman. — May 2
The largest armada of fighting ships ever assembled — known as The Great White Fleet and consisting of the Atlantic Fleet and the Pacific Fleet — gathers in the Bay. The combined flotilla, which includes 24 battleships, will stay a month. —May 6
To curtail speeders, San Francisco Police Chief William Biggy orders his mounted officers to lasso drivers who break the speed law and ignore the demand to "halt." — June 15
H. Laws, a guest at the St. Francis Hotel, was plodding his way up a steep Fillmore Street hill when a man with a strong French accent ran up: "Monsieur, monsieur. At last I have the good fortune to find you." Laws, who had been a guest at the St. Francis at the time of the fire and earthquake two years earlier, had sent his laundry to this man, who operated a French laundry. The Frenchman had saved all his patrons' clothes and, recognizing their owner in the street, returned them neatly wrapped and cleaned. — Aug. 11
San Francisco's first taxicab company is formed. The initial number of cabs to be used will number 25 but will increase as time and need warrant. — Oct. 7
Police Chief William J. Biggy mysteriously disappears off a police boat in the Bay as he was returning from a visit with a police commissioner at his Belvedere home. Biggy had been under pressure since the shooting of prosecutor Heney two weeks earlier and it had been rumored he was about to lose his job. Biggy was never seen again and no body was recovered. — Dec 1
More than 1,500 people, including the governor and his wife, are poisoned by contaminated meat at a Mare Island luncheon. The caterer refuses to tell authorities where he bought the nearly rotten meat. At least two people die and scores are hospitalized. — Dec. 9
With special prosecutor Francis J. Heney in attendance, Abe Ruef, well-known political figure, is convicted of offering to bribe a former supervisor to vote for the United Railroad's franchise and sentenced to 14 years in prison. — Dec 11