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Central Tower (San Francisco)

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Central Tower is a 91 m (299 ft) 21-story office building at Market and Third Streets in San Francisco , California . The building has undergone numerous renovations since its completion in 1898 as the Call Building . It was later known as the Spreckels Building .

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94-643: In 1890, M. H. de Young , owner of the San Francisco Chronicle , built San Francisco's first skyscraper, the 218-foot (66 m) Chronicle Building , to house his newspaper. In response, John D. Spreckels and his father Claus Spreckels purchased the San Francisco Call in 1895 and commissioned a tower of their own that would dwarf the Chronicle Building. In September 1895, The Call wrote: The San Francisco Call

188-466: A building from Burnham and Root at 690 Market Street at the corner of Third and Kearney Streets to be their new headquarters, in what became known as Newspaper Row . The new building, San Francisco's first skyscraper, was completed in 1889. It was damaged in the 1906 earthquake, but it was rebuilt under the direction of William Polk, Burnham's associate in San Francisco. That building, known as

282-588: A cost-cutting move in May 2007. Newspaper executives pointed to growth of SFGate, the online website with 5.2 million unique visitors per month – fifth among U.S. newspaper websites in 2007. In February 2009, Hearst chief executive Frank A. Bennack Jr., and Hearst President Steven R. Swartz, announced that the Chronicle had lost money every year since 2001 and more than $ 50 million in 2008. Without major concessions from employees and other cuts, Hearst would put

376-542: A large mound of sand spanning the width of the river 55 feet below the surface, allowing fresh water and large cargo ships to pass over. Fresh river water flowing from the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico does not mix into the salt water immediately. The images from NASA 's MODIS show a large plume of fresh water, which appears as a dark ribbon against the lighter-blue surrounding waters. These images demonstrate that

470-734: A length of 3,710 miles (5,971 km), making it the fourth longest river in the world after the Nile , Amazon , and Yangtze . When measured by the largest stream source (by water volume), the Ohio River , by extension the Allegheny River , would be the source, and the Mississippi would begin in Pennsylvania . At its source at Lake Itasca , the Mississippi River is about 3 feet (0.91 m) deep. The average depth of

564-478: A natural process known as avulsion or delta switching, the lower Mississippi River has shifted its final course to the mouth of the Gulf of Mexico every thousand years or so. This occurs because the deposits of silt and sediment begin to clog its channel, raising the river's level and causing it to eventually find a steeper, more direct route to the Gulf of Mexico. The abandoned distributaries diminish in volume and form what are known as bayous . This process has, over

658-551: A prominent role in national politics, and Paul Avery , the staffer who pursued the trail of the self-named " Zodiac Killer ", who sent a cryptogram in three sections in letters to the Chronicle and two other papers during his murder spree in the late 1960s. It also featured such colorful columnists as Pauline Phillips , who wrote under the name " Dear Abby ", "Count Marco" (Marc Spinelli), Stanton Delaplane , Terence O'Flaherty, Lucius Beebe , Art Hoppe , Charles McCabe , and Herb Caen . The newspaper grew in circulation to become

752-401: A redesigned paper featuring a modified logo, new section, and page organization, new features, bolder, colored section-front banners and new headline and text typography. The frequent bold-faced, all-capital-letter headlines typical of the Chronicle ' s front page were eliminated. Editor Ward Bushee's note heralded the issue as the start of a "new era" for the Chronicle . On July 6, 2009,

846-539: A vital transportation artery and communications link. In the 19th century, during the height of the ideology of manifest destiny , the Mississippi and several tributaries, most notably its largest, the Ohio and Missouri , formed pathways for the western expansion of the United States. The river also became the subject of American literature , particularly in the writings of Mark Twain . Formed from thick layers of

940-861: Is 208,200 cu ft/s (5,900 m /s). Thus, by volume, the main branch of the Mississippi River system at Cairo can be considered to be the Ohio River (and the Allegheny River further upstream), rather than the Middle Mississippi. In addition to the Ohio River , the major tributaries of the Lower Mississippi River are the White River , flowing in at the White River National Wildlife Refuge in east-central Arkansas;

1034-575: Is a meandering river in a broad, flat area, only rarely flowing alongside a bluff (as at Vicksburg, Mississippi ). The Mississippi River is known as the Middle Mississippi from the Upper Mississippi River's confluence with the Missouri River at St. Louis, Missouri , for 190 miles (310 km) to its confluence with the Ohio River at Cairo, Illinois . The Middle Mississippi is relatively free-flowing. From St. Louis to

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1128-745: Is a response to the competition from other Bay Area newspapers including the resurrected San Francisco Examiner , the Oakland Tribune , the East Bay Times (formerly Contra Costa Times ) and the Mercury News . Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada received the 2004 George Polk Award for Sports Reporting. Fainaru-Wada and Williams were recognized for their work on uncovering the BALCO scandal, which linked San Francisco Giants star Barry Bonds to performance-enhancing drugs. While

1222-498: Is called the Lower Mississippi River from its confluence with the Ohio River to its mouth at the Gulf of Mexico, a distance of about 1,000 miles (1,600 km). At the confluence of the Ohio and the Middle Mississippi, the long-term mean discharge of the Ohio at Cairo, Illinois is 281,500 cubic feet per second (7,970 cubic meters per second), while the long-term mean discharge of the Mississippi at Thebes, Illinois (just upriver from Cairo)

1316-912: Is controlled and managed as a series of pools created by 26 locks and dams. The Upper Mississippi River is joined by the Minnesota River at Fort Snelling in the Twin Cities ; the St. Croix River near Prescott, Wisconsin ; the Cannon River near Red Wing, Minnesota ; the Zumbro River at Wabasha, Minnesota ; the Black , La Crosse , and Root rivers in La Crosse, Wisconsin ; the Wisconsin River at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin ;

1410-546: Is entirely within the United States; the total drainage basin is 1,151,000 sq mi (2,980,000 km ), of which only about one percent is in Canada. The Mississippi ranks as the world's tenth-largest river by discharge flow, and the largest in North America. Native Americans have lived along the Mississippi River and its tributaries for thousands of years. Many were hunter-gatherers , but some, such as

1504-520: Is largely a multi-thread stream with many bars and islands. From its confluence with the St. Croix River downstream to Dubuque, Iowa , the river is entrenched, with high bedrock bluffs lying on either side. The height of these bluffs decreases to the south of Dubuque, though they are still significant through Savanna, Illinois . This topography contrasts strongly with the Lower Mississippi, which

1598-399: Is not as extensive as in the past. The current day Chronicle has followed the trend of other American newspapers, devoting increasing attention to local and regional news and cultural and entertainment criticism to the detriment of the paper's traditionally strong national and international reporting, though the paper does maintain a Washington, D.C., bureau. This increased focus on local news

1692-474: Is the architecture column by John King; the Chronicle is still one of the few American papers to present a regular column on architectural issues. The paper also has regular weekly sections devoted to Food & Home and Style. Circulation has fallen sharply since the dot-com boom peaked from around 1997 to 2001. The Chronicle ' s daily readership dropped by 16.6% between 2004 and 2005 to 400,906; The Chronicle fired one-quarter of its newsroom staff in

1786-539: Is the only true waterfall on the entire Mississippi River. The water elevation continues to drop steeply as it passes through the gorge carved by the waterfall. After the completion of the St. Anthony Falls Lock and Dam in 1963, the river's head of navigation moved upstream, to the Coon Rapids Dam . However, the Locks were closed in 2015 to control the spread of invasive Asian carp , making Minneapolis once again

1880-503: Is to have the finest building ever erected for a newspaper office. It is to be built on the corner of Market and Third streets, of granite and white marble, and will be fifteen stories — 310 feet high, the highest building this side of Chicago. Unlike the Chronicle building it will be a beautiful building and a credit to its owner, Claus Spreckels, and worthy of the great paper to be printed within its walls. A light granite will be used for

1974-496: The Chicago Tribune and Orlando Sentinel , which in 2008 unveiled radically new designs even as changing reader demographics and general economic conditions necessitated physical reductions of the newspapers. On November 9, 2009, the Chronicle became the first newspaper in the nation to print on high-quality glossy paper. The high-gloss paper is used for some section fronts and inside pages. The current publisher of

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2068-880: The Arkansas River , joining the Mississippi at Arkansas Post ; the Big Black River in Mississippi; and the Yazoo River , meeting the Mississippi at Vicksburg, Mississippi . Deliberate water diversion at the Old River Control Structure in Louisiana allows the Atchafalaya River in Louisiana to be a major distributary of the Mississippi River, with 30% of the combined flow of the Mississippi and Red Rivers flowing to

2162-739: The Central Coast , the Central Valley , and even as far as Honolulu , Hawaii. There was little competition in the Bay Area suburbs and other areas that the newspaper served, but as Knight-Ridder consolidated the Mercury News in 1975; purchased the Contra Costa Times (now East Bay Times ) in 1995; and as the Denver-based Media News Group made a rapid purchase of the remaining newspapers on

2256-545: The Chronicle became the city's sole morning daily while the Examiner changed to afternoon publication (which ultimately led to a declining readership). The newspapers were officially owned by the San Francisco Newspaper Agency, which managed sales and distribution for both newspapers and was charged with ensuring that one newspaper's circulation did not grow at the expense of the other. Revenue

2350-695: The Chronicle has for decades used a small cartoon icon, sitting in a movie theater seat, known as the "Little Man", explained in 2008 by the Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert : "...the only rating system that makes any sense is the Little Man of the San Francisco Chronicle , who is seen (1) jumping out of his seat and applauding wildly; (2) sitting up happily and applauding; (3) sitting attentively; (4) asleep in his seat; or (5) gone from his seat." Another area of note

2444-556: The Chronicle is Bill Nagel. Audrey Cooper was named editor-in-chief in January 2015 and was the first woman to hold the position. In June 2020 she left to be the editor-in-chief of WNYC, New York City. In August 2020, Hearst named Emilio Garcia-Ruiz the publication's editor-in-chief. Ann Killion has written for Sports Illustrated . Carl Nolte is a journalist and columnist. The newspaper's websites are at SFGate.com (free) and SFChronicle.com (premium). Originally The Gate , SFGATE

2538-635: The Gothic Revival architecture style, but most of the Gothic Revival detailing was removed in 1968 when the building was re-clad with stucco. This building remains the Chronicle ' s headquarters in 2017, although other concerns are located there as well. Between World War II and 1971, new editor Scott Newhall took a bold and somewhat provocative approach to news presentation. Newhall's Chronicle included investigative reporting by such journalists as Pierre Salinger , who later played

2632-577: The Gulf of Mexico , part of the Atlantic Ocean. The total catchment of the Mississippi River covers nearly 40% of the landmass of the continental United States. The highest point within the watershed is also the highest point of the Rocky Mountains , Mount Elbert at 14,440 feet (4,400 m). In the United States, the Mississippi River drains the majority of the area between the crest of

2726-603: The Minnesota River , James River , and Milk River valleys. When the ice sheet completely retreated, many of these "temporary" rivers found paths to Hudson Bay or the Arctic Ocean, leaving the Mississippi Basin with many features "over-sized" for the existing rivers to have carved in the same time period. Ice sheets during the Illinoian Stage , about 300,000 to 132,000 years before present, blocked

2820-559: The Mississippi River Delta in the Gulf of Mexico . With its many tributaries , the Mississippi's watershed drains all or parts of 32 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces between the Rocky and Appalachian mountains. The river either borders or passes through the states of Minnesota , Wisconsin , Iowa , Illinois , Missouri , Kentucky , Tennessee , Arkansas , Mississippi , and Louisiana . The main stem

2914-466: The Mound Builders , formed prolific agricultural and urban civilizations, and some practiced aquaculture . The arrival of Europeans in the 16th century changed the native way of life as first explorers, then settlers, ventured into the basin in increasing numbers. The river served sometimes as a barrier, forming borders for New Spain , New France , and the early United States, and throughout as

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3008-1320: The Rock River at the Quad Cities ; the Iowa River near Wapello, Iowa ; the Skunk River south of Burlington, Iowa ; and the Des Moines River at Keokuk, Iowa . Other major tributaries of the Upper Mississippi include the Crow River in Minnesota, the Chippewa River in Wisconsin, the Maquoketa River and the Wapsipinicon River in Iowa, and the Illinois River in Illinois. The Upper Mississippi

3102-887: The Rocky Mountains and the crest of the Appalachian Mountains , except for various regions drained to Hudson Bay by the Red River of the North ; to the Atlantic Ocean by the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence River ; and to the Gulf of Mexico by the Rio Grande , the Alabama and Tombigbee rivers, the Chattahoochee and Appalachicola rivers, and various smaller coastal waterways along

3196-584: The West Coast of the United States by 1880. Like other newspapers, it experienced a rapid fall in circulation in the early 21st century and was ranked 18th nationally by circulation in the first quarter of 2021. In 1994, the newspaper launched the SFGATE website, with a soft launch in March and an official launch on November 3, 1994, including both content from the newspaper and other sources. "The Gate", as it

3290-429: The headwaters region and serve multiple purposes, including power generation and recreation. The remaining 29 dams, beginning in downtown Minneapolis, all contain locks and were constructed to improve commercial navigation of the upper river. Taken as a whole, these 43 dams significantly shape the geography and influence the ecology of the upper river. Beginning just below Saint Paul, Minnesota , and continuing throughout

3384-491: The most recent Ice Age . The southernmost extent of this enormous glaciation extended well into the present-day United States and Mississippi basin. When the ice sheet began to recede, hundreds of feet of rich sediment were deposited, creating the flat and fertile landscape of the Mississippi Valley. During the melt, giant glacial rivers found drainage paths into the Mississippi watershed, creating such features as

3478-435: The "Old Chronicle Building" or the "DeYoung Building", still stands and was restored in 2007. It is a historic landmark and is the location of the Ritz-Carlton Club and Residences . In 1924, the Chronicle commissioned a new headquarters at 901 Mission Street on the corner of 5th Street in what is now the South of Market (SoMa) neighborhood of San Francisco. It was designed by Charles Peter Weeks and William Peyton Day in

3572-424: The "true head" of the Mississippi River as a combination of the last four letters of the Latin word for truth ( ver itas ) and the first two letters of the Latin word for head ( ca put ). However, the lake is in turn fed by a number of smaller streams. From its origin at Lake Itasca to St. Louis, Missouri , the waterway's flow is moderated by 43 dams. Fourteen of these dams are located above Minneapolis in

3666-406: The 18th century, the river was set by the Treaty of Paris as, for the most part, the western border of the new United States. With the Louisiana Purchase and the country's westward expansion, it became a convenient boundary line between the western and eastern halves of the country. This is reflected in the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, which was designed to symbolize the opening of the West, and

3760-423: The 20th century, the Mississippi River has also experienced major pollution and environmental problems — most notably elevated nutrient and chemical levels from agricultural runoff, the primary contributor to the Gulf of Mexico dead zone . The word Mississippi itself comes from Misi zipi , the French rendering of the Anishinaabe ( Ojibwe or Algonquin ) name for the river, Misi-ziibi (Great River). In

3854-407: The Chronicle has 34 million unique visitors each month, with SFGATE receiving 135.9 million pageviews and 25.1 million unique visitors per month and SFChronicle.com 31.3 million pageviews and 31.3 million unique visitors per month globally. The paper has received the Pulitzer Prize on a number of occasions. Despite an illustrious and long history, the paper's news reportage

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3948-402: The Earth's mantle (specifically, the Bermuda hotspot ) that was undergoing a period of intense activity. The upwelling of magma from the hotspot forced the further uplift to a height of perhaps 2–3 km of part of the Appalachian-Ouachita range, forming an arch that blocked southbound water flows. The uplifted land quickly eroded and, as North America moved away from the hot spot and as

4042-410: The East Bay by 1985, the Chronicle realized it had to step up its suburban coverage. The Chronicle launched five zoned sections to appear in the Friday edition of the paper. The sections covered San Francisco and four different suburban areas. They each featured a unique columnist, enterprise pieces, and local news specific to the community. The newspaper added 40 full-time staff positions to work in

4136-588: The Gulf of Mexico by this route, rather than continuing down the Mississippi's current channel past Baton Rouge and New Orleans on a longer route to the Gulf. Although the Red River was once an additional tributary, its water now flows separately into the Gulf of Mexico through the Atchafalaya River. The Mississippi River has the world's fourth-largest drainage basin ("watershed" or "catchment"). The basin covers more than 1,245,000 square miles (3,220,000 km ), including all or parts of 32 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces. The drainage basin empties into

4230-409: The Gulf. The Mississippi River empties into the Gulf of Mexico about 100 miles (160 km) downstream from New Orleans. Measurements of the length of the Mississippi from Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico vary somewhat, but the United States Geological Survey 's number is 2,340 miles (3,766 km). The retention time from Lake Itasca to the Gulf is typically about 90 days; while speed varies along

4324-404: The Illinoian Stage. Timeline of outflow course changes In March 1876, the Mississippi suddenly changed course near the settlement of Reverie, Tennessee , leaving a small part of Tipton County, Tennessee , attached to Arkansas and separated from the rest of Tennessee by the new river channel. Since this event was an avulsion , rather than the effect of incremental erosion and deposition,

4418-408: The Midwestern and eastern U.S. These earthquakes created Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee from the altered landscape near the river. When measured from its traditional source at Lake Itasca , the Mississippi has a length of 2,340 miles (3,766 km). When measured from its longest stream source (most distant source from the sea), Brower's Spring in Montana , the source of the Missouri River , it has

4512-416: The Mississippi River between Saint Paul and Saint Louis is between 9 and 12 feet (2.7–3.7 m) deep, the deepest part being Lake Pepin , which averages 20–32 feet (6–10 m) deep and has a maximum depth of 60 feet (18 m). Between where the Missouri River joins the Mississippi at Saint Louis, Missouri, and Cairo, Illinois, the depth averages 30 feet (9 m). Below Cairo, where the Ohio River joins,

4606-411: The Mississippi River has experienced numerous large and small changes to its main course, as well as additions, deletions, and other changes among its numerous tributaries, and the lower Mississippi River has used different pathways as its main channel to the Gulf of Mexico across the delta region. As Pangaea began to break up about 95 million years ago, North America passed over a volcanic " hotspot " in

4700-415: The Mississippi River near New Madrid, Missouri , between Memphis and St. Louis, is related to an aulacogen (failed rift) that formed at the same time as the Gulf of Mexico. This area is still quite active seismically. Four great earthquakes in 1811 and 1812 , estimated at 8 on the Richter magnitude scale , had tremendous local effects in the then sparsely settled area, and were felt in many other places in

4794-404: The Mississippi near Rock Island, Illinois, diverting it to its present channel farther to the west, the current western border of Illinois. The Hennepin Canal roughly follows the ancient channel of the Mississippi downstream from Rock Island to Hennepin, Illinois . South of Hennepin, to Alton, Illinois , the current Illinois River follows the ancient channel used by the Mississippi River before

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4888-443: The Ohio River confluence, the Middle Mississippi falls 220 feet (67 m) over 180 miles (290 km) for an average rate of 1.2 feet per mile (23 cm/km). At its confluence with the Ohio River, the Middle Mississippi is 315 feet (96 m) above sea level. Apart from the Missouri and Meramec rivers of Missouri and the Kaskaskia River of Illinois, no major tributaries enter the Middle Mississippi River. The Mississippi River

4982-408: The Ohio to the Gulf of Mexico. The Upper Mississippi runs from its headwaters to its confluence with the Missouri River at St. Louis, Missouri. It is divided into two sections: The source of the Upper Mississippi branch is traditionally accepted as Lake Itasca , 1,475 feet (450 m) above sea level in Itasca State Park in Clearwater County, Minnesota . The name Itasca was chosen to designate

5076-430: The Upper Mississippi River is the Upper St. Anthony Falls Lock and Dam in Minneapolis. Above the dam, the river's elevation is 799 feet (244 m). Below the dam, the river's elevation is 750 feet (230 m). This 49-foot (15 m) drop is the largest of all the Mississippi River locks and dams. The origin of the dramatic drop is a waterfall preserved adjacent to the lock under an apron of concrete. Saint Anthony Falls

5170-426: The Upper Mississippi is a simple steel culvert, through which the river (locally named "Nicolet Creek") flows north from Lake Nicolet under "Wilderness Road" to the West Arm of Lake Itasca, within Itasca State Park . The earliest bridge across the Mississippi River was built in 1855. It spanned the river in Minneapolis where the current Hennepin Avenue Bridge is located. No highway or railroad tunnels cross under

5264-555: The areas drained by them. Denser salt water from the Gulf of Mexico forms a salt wedge along the river bottom near the mouth of the river, while fresh water flows near the surface. In drought years, with less fresh water to push it out, salt water can travel many miles upstream—64 miles (103 km) in 2022—contaminating drinking water supplies and requiring the use of desalination . The United States Army Corps of Engineers constructed "saltwater sills" or "underwater levees" to contain this in 1988, 1999, 2012, and 2022. This consists of

5358-445: The book review. From 1965 on the two papers shared a single classified-advertising operation. This arrangement stayed in place until the Hearst Corporation took full control of the Chronicle in 2000. Beginning in the early 1990s, the Chronicle began to face competition beyond the borders of San Francisco. The newspaper had long enjoyed a wide reach as the de facto " newspaper of record " in Northern California, with distribution along

5452-436: The city's largest, overtaking the rival San Francisco Examiner . The demise of other San Francisco dailies through the late 1950s and early 1960s left the Examiner and the Chronicle to battle for circulation and readership superiority. The competition between the Chronicle and Examiner took a financial toll on both papers until the summer of 1965, when a merger of sorts created a Joint Operating Agreement under which

5546-427: The course of the river, this gives an overall average of around 26 mi (42 km) per day, or 1 mi (1.6 km) per hour. The stream gradient of the entire river is 0.01%, a drop of 450 m over 3,766 km. The Mississippi River discharges at an annual average rate of between 200 and 700 thousand cubic feet per second (6,000 and 20,000 m /s). The Mississippi is the fourteenth largest river in

5640-558: The de Young family founded KRON-TV (Channel 4), the Bay Area's third television station. Until the mid-1960s, the station (along with KRON-FM), operated from the basement of the Chronicle Building, on Mission Street. KRON moved to studios at 1001 Van Ness Avenue (on the former site of St. Mary's Cathedral, which burned down in 1962). KRON was sold to Young Broadcasting in 2000 and, after years of being San Francisco's NBC affiliate, became an independent station on January 1, 2002, when NBC—tired of Chronicle's repeated refusal to sell KRON to

5734-403: The delta of the Chippewa River of Wisconsin as it enters the Upper Mississippi, is more than 2 miles (3.2 km) wide. By the time the Upper Mississippi reaches Saint Paul , Minnesota, below Lock and Dam No. 1, it has dropped more than half its original elevation and is 687 feet (209 m) above sea level. From St. Paul to St. Louis, Missouri, the river elevation falls much more slowly and

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5828-532: The depth averages 50–100 feet (15–30 m) deep. The deepest part of the river is in New Orleans, where it reaches 200 feet (61 m) deep. The Mississippi River runs through or along 10 states, from Minnesota to Louisiana , and is used to define portions of these states' borders, with Wisconsin , Illinois , Kentucky , Tennessee , and Mississippi along the east side of the river, and Iowa , Missouri , and Arkansas along its west side. Substantial parts of both Minnesota and Louisiana are on either side of

5922-402: The first female president of the Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA). The Chronicle's Sunday arts and entertainment insert section is called Datebook , and has for decades been printed on pink-tinted paper in a tabloid format. Movie reviews (for many years written by nationally known critic Mick LaSalle ) feature a unique rating system: instead of stars or a "thumbs up" system,

6016-453: The first three stories, but above the third story white marble will be used. The main entrance or rotunda will be finished in some polished California marble, the very choicest obtainable, and the floor will be mosaic. The building eventually stood 315 feet (96 m) tall with an ornate baroque dome —which housed the offices of Reid & Reid , the building's architects—and four corner cupolas when construction finished in 1898. It

6110-413: The focus on the " Trans-Mississippi " region in the Trans-Mississippi Exposition . Regional landmarks are often classified in relation to the river, such as "the highest peak east of the Mississippi " or "the oldest city west of the Mississippi". The FCC also uses it as the dividing line for broadcast call-signs , which begin with W to the east and K to the west, overlapping in media markets along

6204-441: The hotspot's activity declined, the crust beneath the embayment region cooled, contracted and subsided to a depth of 2.6 km, and around 80 million years ago the Reelfoot Rift formed a trough that was flooded by the Gulf of Mexico . As sea levels dropped, the Mississippi and other rivers extended their courses into the embayment , which gradually became filled with sediment with the Mississippi River at its center. Through

6298-402: The last two decades, this number was only 160 million short tons (145 million metric tons) per year. The reduction in sediment transported down the Mississippi River is the result of engineering modification of the Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio rivers and their tributaries by dams, meander cutoffs , river-training structures, and bank revetments and soil erosion control programs in

6392-437: The lower 10 miles (16 km) of the Kaskaskia River, forming a new Mississippi channel and cutting off the town from the rest of the state. Later flooding destroyed most of the remaining town, including the original State House. Today, the remaining 2,300 acres (930 ha) island and community of 14 residents is known as an enclave of Illinois and is accessible only from the Missouri side. The New Madrid Seismic Zone , along

6486-455: The main digital portal for the San Francisco Chronicle , registered 19 million unique visitors in January 2015, making it the seventh-ranked newspaper website in the United States. Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States . From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota , it flows generally south for 2,340 miles (3,766 km) to

6580-418: The network and, later, Young's asking price for the station being too high —purchased KNTV in San Jose from Granite Broadcasting Corporation for $ 230 million. Since the Hearst Corporation took ownership in 2000 the Chronicle has made periodic changes to its organization and design, but on February 1, 2009, as the newspaper began its 145th year of publication, the Chronicle Sunday edition introduced

6674-449: The new river channel, contiguous with the adjacent state. Also, due to a meander in the river, a small part of western Kentucky is contiguous with Tennessee but isolated from the rest of its state. Many of the communities along the Mississippi River are listed below; most have either historic significance or cultural lore connecting them to the river. They are sequenced from the source of the river to its end. The road crossing highest on

6768-476: The paper unveiled some alterations to the new design that included yet newer section fronts and wider use of color photographs and graphics. In a special section publisher, Frank J. Vega described new, state-of-the-art printing operations enabling the production of what he termed "A Bolder, Brighter Chronicle ." The newer look was accompanied by a reduction in the size of the broadsheet. Such moves are similar to those made by other prominent American newspapers such as

6862-464: The papers up for sale and, if no buyer was found, shut the paper. San Francisco would have become the first major American city without a daily newspaper. The cuts were made. Despite – or perhaps because of – the threats, the loss of readers and advertisers accelerated. On October 26, 2009, the Audit Bureau of Circulations reported that the Chronicle had suffered a 25.8% drop in circulation for

6956-620: The past 5,000 years, caused the coastline of south Louisiana to advance toward the Gulf from 15 to 50 miles (24 to 80 km). The currently active delta lobe is called the Birdfoot Delta, after its shape, or the Balize Delta , after La Balize, Louisiana , the first French settlement at the mouth of the Mississippi. The current form of the Mississippi River basin was largely shaped by the Laurentide Ice Sheet of

7050-549: The plume did not mix with the surrounding sea water immediately. Instead, it stayed intact as it flowed through the Gulf of Mexico, into the Straits of Florida , and entered the Gulf Stream . The Mississippi River water rounded the tip of Florida and traveled up the southeast coast to the latitude of Georgia before finally mixing in so thoroughly with the ocean that it could no longer be detected by MODIS. Over geologic time,

7144-612: The river's silt deposits, the Mississippi embayment is one of the most fertile regions of the United States; steamboats were widely used in the 19th and early 20th centuries to ship agricultural and industrial goods. During the American Civil War , the Mississippi's capture by Union forces marked a turning point towards victory , due to the river's strategic importance to the Confederate war effort. Because of

7238-479: The river, although the Mississippi defines part of the boundary of each of these states. In all of these cases, the middle of the riverbed at the time the borders were established was used as the line to define the borders between adjacent states. In various areas, the river has since shifted, but the state borders have not changed, still following the former bed of the Mississippi River as of their establishment, leaving several small isolated areas of one state across

7332-672: The river. Due to its size and importance, it has been nicknamed The Mighty Mississippi River or simply The Mighty Mississippi . The Mississippi River can be divided into three sections: the Upper Mississippi , the river from its headwaters to the confluence with the Missouri River; the Middle Mississippi, which is downriver from the Missouri to the Ohio River; and the Lower Mississippi , which flows from

7426-400: The site of the head of navigation of the river. The Upper Mississippi has a number of natural and artificial lakes, with its widest point being Lake Winnibigoshish , near Grand Rapids, Minnesota , over 11 miles (18 km) across. Lake Onalaska , created by Lock and Dam No. 7 , near La Crosse, Wisconsin , is more than 4 miles (6.4 km) wide. Lake Pepin , a natural lake formed behind

7520-486: The six-month period ending in September 2009, to 251,782 subscribers, the largest percentage drop in circulation of any major newspaper in the United States. Chronicle publisher Frank Vega said the drop was expected as the paper moved to earn more from higher subscription fees from fewer readers. In May 2013, Vega retired and was replaced as publisher by former Los Angeles Times publisher Jeffrey M. Johnson. SFGate,

7614-532: The state line still follows the old channel. The town of Kaskaskia, Illinois once stood on a peninsula at the confluence of the Mississippi and Kaskaskia (Okaw) Rivers . Founded as a French colonial community, it later became the capital of the Illinois Territory and was the first state capital of Illinois until 1819. Beginning in 1844, successive flooding caused the Mississippi River to slowly encroach east. A major flood in 1881 caused it to overtake

7708-412: The substantial growth of cities and the larger ships and barges that replaced steamboats, the first decades of the 20th century saw the construction of massive engineering works such as levees , locks and dams , often built in combination. A major focus of this work has been to prevent the lower Mississippi from shifting into the channel of the Atchafalaya River and bypassing New Orleans . Since

7802-622: The suburban bureaus. Despite the push to focus on suburban coverage, the Chronicle was hamstrung by the Sunday edition, which, being produced by the San Francisco-centric "un- Chronicle " Examiner , had none of the focus on the suburban communities that the Chronicle was striving to cultivate. The de Young family controlled the paper, via the Chronicle Publishing Company , until July 27, 2000, when it

7896-451: The two above-named reporters broke the news, they are by no means the only sports writers of note at the Chronicle . The Chronicle ' s sports section is edited by Christina Kahrl and called Sporting Green as it is printed on green-tinted pages. The section's best-known writers are its columnists: Bruce Jenkins, Ann Killion, Scott Ostler, and Mike Silver. Its baseball coverage is anchored by Henry Schulman, John Shea, and Susan Slusser ,

7990-573: The upper and lower river, the Mississippi is further controlled by thousands of wing dikes that moderate the river's flow in order to maintain an open navigation channel and prevent the river from eroding its banks. The head of navigation on the Mississippi is the St. Anthony Falls Lock. Before the Coon Rapids Dam in Coon Rapids, Minnesota , was built in 1913, steamboats could occasionally go upstream as far as Saint Cloud, Minnesota , depending on river conditions. The uppermost lock and dam on

8084-479: The world by volume. On average, the Mississippi has 8% the flow of the Amazon River , which moves nearly 7 million cubic feet per second (200,000 m /s) during wet seasons. Before 1900, the Mississippi River transported an estimated 440 million short tons (400 million metric tons) of sediment per year from the interior of the United States to coastal Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico. During

8178-417: Was founded by brothers Charles and M. H. de Young in 1865 as The Daily Dramatic Chronicle , funded by a borrowed $ 20 gold piece. Their brother Gustavus was named with Charles on the masthead. Within 10 years, it had the largest circulation of any newspaper west of the Mississippi River . The paper's first office was in a building at the corner of Bush and Kearney Streets . The brothers then commissioned

8272-468: Was founded in 1865 as The Daily Dramatic Chronicle by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young . The paper is owned by the Hearst Corporation , which bought it from the de Young family in 2000. It is the only major daily paper covering the city and county of San Francisco. The paper benefited from the growth of San Francisco and had the largest newspaper circulation on

8366-458: Was known at launch, was the first large market newspaper website in the world, co-founded by Allen Weiner and John Coate. It went on to staff up with its own columnists and reporters, and even won a Pulitzer Prize for Mark Fiore's political cartoons. In 2013, the newspaper launched its own namesake website, SFChronicle.com, and began the separation of SFGATE and the Chronicle brands, which today are two separately run entities. The Chronicle

8460-431: Was one of the earliest major market newspaper websites to be launched, on November 3, 1994, at the time of The Newspaper Guild strike ; the union published its own news website, San Francisco Free Press , whose staff joined SFGATE when the strike ended. SFChronicle.com launched in 2013 and since 2019 has been run separately from SFGATE, whose staff are independent of the print newspaper. As of 2020 across all platforms

8554-509: Was reduced to 298 feet (91 m) and the number of stories was increased from 15 to 21; the ornate dome and the cupolas atop the building were removed. [REDACTED] Media related to Central Tower (San Francisco) at Wikimedia Commons San Francisco Chronicle 226,860 avg. Mon-Fri circulation The San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California . It

8648-614: Was sold to Hearst Communications, Inc. , which owned the Examiner . Following the sale, the Hearst Corporation transferred the Examiner to the Fang family, publisher of the San Francisco Independent and AsianWeek , along with a $ 66-million subsidy. Under the new owners, the Examiner became a free tabloid , leaving the Chronicle as the only daily broadsheet newspaper in San Francisco. In 1949,

8742-416: Was split equally, which led to a situation widely understood to benefit the Examiner , since the Chronicle , which had a circulation four times larger than its rival, subsidized the afternoon newspaper. The two newspapers produced a joint Sunday edition, with the Examiner publishing the news sections and the Sunday magazine, and the Chronicle responsible for the tabloid-sized entertainment section and

8836-500: Was the tallest building west of the Mississippi River for many years. The structure was badly burned and damaged by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake , although the building did not collapse. After the fire, The Call reopened its offices at a new location, The Montgomery , and the former Call Building became known as the Spreckels Building. In 1938 Albert Roller completely refurbished Central Tower. The building's height

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