"Before the Fire 1854-1906"

"The great Pierre Saint-Amant, one of the top players in the world in the 1840s, was French Consul in San Francisco from 1851-52.

It appears he left the Bay Area before the founding of the Mechanics’, so the honours for the first world class player to visit San Francisco go to Johann Zukertort who spent nearly a month in the City in July of 1884."