Jack London Birthplace Memorial Plaque

The small memorial plaque you are looking at marks the site where the novelist Jack London was born on January 12, 1876. He arrived into the world in a modest house that once stood at 615 Third Street, a location that looked quite different before the massive fires of the 1906 earthquake erased the neighborhood's original structures. The site now hosts a commercial building, a setting that often sparks irony for observers familiar with London’s lifelong dedication to socialist principles and his critiques of corporate power. The California Historical Society installed this marker in 1953 to ensure the city’s industrial landscape kept a tangible link to one of its most famous literary figures.