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Vitus Wackreuder (1823-1887) was a Germany born civil engineer, who arrived in California in 1849 with the Gold Rush with a carpetbag.

Wackenreuder painted a noteworthy gouache of Mission Santa Barbara in 1852 and made a map of San Francisco in 1861 for the city directory. While in San Francisco he bought and soldproperty on lower Market Street.

The Wackenreuder homestead was on what is now Bayshore Blvd where he lived with his wife Thomasa Eienega and thirteen children. He died in San Francisco on Aug. 15, 1887 of “a shock of paralysis”