History of Noe Street/Noe Valley

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What is the history of Noe Valley and Noe Street?

-- Angella Sargent (amc@youthtec.org), February 28, 2004

Answers

I'll answer some of this and let others fill in the gaps and answer more.

Noe Valley and Noe Street is named after Jose De Jesus Noe who was the last Mexican type mayor or alcalde of San Francisco which was of course in 1846. Strangely enough, there was another Jesus Noe who was Alcalde of San Francisco in 1842. I don't think he was the same Noe but he might have been related. Jose Noe came to San Francisco from Mexico in 1834 under the promise of landownership as were promised most new Mexican colonists. Finally, in 1845, Jose Noe received a huge portion of land in the central area of San Francisco. In 1846 he was elected Alcalde only to have it taken from him when the U.S. government took control.

Later on, as there were questions and doubts of legal Mexican ownership of the land (probably on purpose to get the Mexicans to sell cheap and leave) and as a lot of Mexican ownership was not found legal, Jose Noe sold his land and left back to Mexico. I don't remember who he sold it too but I do remember that by 1900 Adolf Sutro owned most of it.

-- Harry Murphy (harrymurphy*@bigmailbox.net), February 29, 2004.


Harry, it's the same Jose de Jesus Noe. He was alcalde in 1842 and 1846.

http://www.zpub.com/ sf50/sf/hgmay.htm

I don't think he returned to Mexico because he was listed in the San Francisco city directory of 1862 as "Joseph Jesus Noe, farmer, dwelling on old San Jose Road.", buried at Mission Dolores cemetery in San Francisco (1862), and has decendents still living in California according to Mae Silver's book Rancho San Miguel: A San Francisco Neighborhood History.

http://www.noevalleyvoice.com/2001/September/ Jose.html

http:// home.earthlink.net/~ordstreetpress/rsm.htm

-- will (willstaiger@yahoo.com), February 29, 2004.


The Noe Valley Voice link directs you to the present issue (sorry). Just follow the back issues link to Sept 2001 and look for the article on Jose Noe, titled "Neighborhood Historian Sheds New Light on the Image of Jose Noe". An interesting and informative article that didn't get much exposure for obious reasons (9/11?).

-- will (willstaiger@yahoo.com), February 29, 2004.

Thank you Will, I knew my facts were not all correct as I was really struggling deep down in my memory to bring it all back. I did think that Noe returned to Mexico for awhile but maybe not. And yeah, you are right, I do now recall that he was burried at Mission Dolores.

Very interesting about the Noe Valley Voice neighborhood newspaper. I didn't even know such a newspaper existed. Shows you how much I get to that part of town.

That sounds like a pretty good book too.

-- Harry Murphy (harrymurphy*@bigmailbox.net), March 02, 2004.


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