Audiffred Building San Francisco 2 Editorial Image

Hippolyte d`Audffret was a Frenchman living in the Mexican city of Veracruz during the period of Emperor Maximillian, 1864 - 1867, when the Emperor and the French suddenly became unpopular. Because of this, he supposedly walked all the way to San Francisco, 4027 Kilometers or 2502 miles. One thing he did after arriving was to Anglicize his name to Audiffred.As for business, he started out by selling charcoal in Chinatown. As that became more profitable, he built this building, in 1889, for his growing business.It was rented for restaurants and taverns, and being close to the waterfront, used by the sailors unions.It was also used for a time as one of the original branch banks for the Bank of Italy, the predecessor of Bank of America.