The Bay Area was experiencing a postwar economic boom by 1946, the San Francisco 49ers’ inaugural season. As homes popped up all over the place to house the rapidly expanding population that was migrating to California, Morabito’s timber yard was in high demand.
With his business colleagues from the Lumber Terminals of San Francisco, Allen E. Sorrell, and E.J. Turre, as well as his younger brother Victor, Morabito owned the new All-America Football Conference team.
In honor of the travelers who had hurried to the West in search of gold, Sorrell recommended naming the squad the “49ers.” The team has only ever been associated with this moniker, and San Francisco is the only place it has ever called home.
The team’s first logo showed San Francisco’s chaotic beginnings. It was a gold miner firing a pair of pistols while wearing boots and a lumberjack shirt.
The miner was shot twice; one shot narrowly missed his head and the other his foot. A graphic found on the side of railroad freight trains served as the inspiration for the logo.
In honor of the travelers who had hurried to the West in search of gold, Sorrell recommended naming the squad the “49ers.” The team has only ever been associated with this moniker, and San Francisco is the only place it has ever called home. The team’s first logo showed San Francisco’s chaotic beginnings.