Today this redwood grove is the city's first POPOS (Privately Owned Public Open Space), but in the 1860 here stood Martin's saloon, a hangout for journalists and home base for Bummer, a newfoundland-terrier mix street dog treasured by the saloon keeper for his skill at killing rats.
One day Bummer saw another large dog in his territory fighting a smaller one. Naturally he intervened, and brutally evicted the attacker. The victim took deep wounds and was not expected to live, but Bummer took care of him for over two months while he recovered from his wounds. Under Bummer's protection the small dog made a miraculous recovery earning him the name Lazarus.
Having nursed Lazarus to health, Bummer took him on as a partner and they commenced ratting together. As a team they were unparalleled, documented to have killed 85 rats in 20 minutes and earned the respect and gratitude of all local merchants.
Their friendship was the talk of the city, and when Lazarus temporarily abandoned Bummer the betrayal was felt by everyone. Bummer, however, forgave Lazarus, and so did the humans.
In 1862, when Lazarus was accidentally captured by a dog-catcher the poor man barely escaped a lynch mob. To prevent similar disturbances the city supervisors declared Bummer and Lazarus exempt from city ordinances.
As many heroes, these two had their shortcomings. Lazarus' were cowardice and unfaithfulness. Bummer's was the violent inclination that drove him to kill sheep and other dogs. But didn't they keep Montgomery rat-free? And didn't they stop a runaway horse by biting at its stirrups? And didn't they give every reporter in the city an easy way to fill an empty space whenever necessary?
You used to be able to find Lazarus in the Guinness Book of World Records as late as 1970s, a hundred years after his death. Guinness had him in the "World's Biggest Dog Funeral" category. They no longer track these, so Lazarus' record of 10,000 mourners will never be broken.
Bummer's funeral was not as large. As Mark Twain put it in his eulogy "although he was always more respected than his obsequious vassal, the dog 'Lazarus,' his exit has not made half as much stir in the newspaper world as signalised the departure of the latter. I think it is because he died a natural death: died with friends around him to smooth his pillow and wipe the death-damps from his brow, and receive his last words of love and resignation; because he died full of years, and honor, and disease, and fleas. He was permited to die a natural death, as I have said, but poor Lazarus 'died with his boots on' - which is to say, he lost his life by violence; he gave up the ghost mysteriously, at dead of night, with none to cheer his last moments or soothe his dying pains."
After their deaths Bummer and Lazarus were taxidermized and displayed in a nearby bar before being moved to DeYoung museum.