This is a really good piece of film that I thought was worth sharing. Just sit back and travel through time for a few minutes and enjoy the ride...

A Trip Down Market Street is a 13-minute "actuality" film recorded by placing a movie camera on the front of a cable car as it proceeds down San Francisco’s Market Street. A time capsule from over 100 years ago, the film showcases the details of daily life in a major American city, including the fashions, transportation and architecture of the era. The film begins at 8th Street and continues eastward to the cable car turntable, at The Embarcadero, in front of the San Francisco Ferry Building.

The film was originally thought to have been made in 1905, but historian David Kiehn, who examined contemporary newspapers, weather reports and car license plates recorded in the film, later suggested that A Trip Down Market Street was likely filmed just a few days before the devastating earthquake on April 18, 1906.

In 2010, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

Produced as part of the popular Hale's Tours of the World film series, the film begins at the location of the Miles Brothers film studio, 1139 Market Street, between 8th and 9th Streets; it was filmed 14 April 1906, four days before the devastating earthquake and fire of 18 April 1906, which killed over 3,000 people and virtually destroyed the entire downtown area. The negative was taken by train to the Miles New York office on 17 April 1906, narrowly saving it from destruction by one day and thus preserving a moment in the history of San Francisco that would soon cease to exist.

Although it appears that there are many automobiles in the film, the number of them is deceiving, because the same cars frequently circle around and pass by the cable car on more than one occasion; California began registering automobiles in 1905, and license plates are visible on several of them; the car with plate 5057 was registered in February 1906 by the Reliance Auto Company.