[4]: 149  Subsequently, planning began for the first California Constitutional Convention and a local election was held on August 1, 1849, naming ten delegates; these men were advised by John W. Geary, the recently-elected First Alcalde (equivalent to the mayor), that "in the absence of any state legislative authority, they were supreme in the district" as the ayuntamiento (town council, equivalent to the modern San Francisco Board of Supervisors).

[4]: 156  Members of a group that previously had held a vigilante justice trial in February 1851 continued the legacy of the Hounds, later forming the San Francisco Committee of Vigilance in June 1851.

[4]: 172–173  The Graham House was destroyed during the fifth "great fire" of June 22, 1851, and the former Jenny Lind Theater was purchased in 1852 for US$200,000 (equivalent to $7,325,000 in 2023) to serve as a replacement City Hall and Courthouse.

[4]: 170, 184 Gold mine production peaked during the winter of 1852–53 and many miners left the city;[4]: 216–217  by 1855, the population boom and bust had produced what historian John Hittell called "a greater depth of [political] corruption in San Francisco than in any other part of the United States.

"[4]: 241  Notable failures of justice, including the fraud of Henry Meiggs and the murder of James King of William, led to the revival of the Committee of Vigilance in May 1856,[4]: 243–246  which subsequently was dissolved that August.

[5]: 712–713  As historian John P. Young wrote in 1912, "The cost as originally estimated was quite modest, but there were plenty of critics who declared that it would be largely exceeded.