History of San Francisco, California
Encyclopedia
The history of the city of San Francisco, California
, and its development as a center of maritime trade, have been greatly influenced by its location at the entrance to one of the world's best natural harbors. San Francisco is the name of both the city and the county, which share the same boundaries.
The first Native Americans
to settle this region found the Bay to be a vast natural resource for hunting and gathering their provisions and for the establishment of many small villages. Collectively, these early Native Americans were known as the Ohlone
, and the language they spoke belonged to the Miwok
family. Their trade patterns included places as far away as Baja California, the Mojave Desert and Yosemite.
The first Europeans to see what would become San Francisco were members of a Spanish exploratory voyage led by Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo
. Cabrillo, sailing north from Mexico
, explored the coast as far north as Point Reyes, but failed to discover the entrance to San Francisco Bay
. An English expedition led by Sir Francis Drake
also sailed past the bay entrance, in 1579. Drake mapped the coast and called the cliffs by the bay Nova Albion, but made little effort to claim or settle the land.
The earliest European colonial enterprises came in 1796, led north from Mexico by Spaniards Don Gaspar de Portolà
and Fra. Junipero Serra
. The Spanish found this location to be of great strategic significance, establishing both military and religious settlements. The Presidio of San Francisco
was the center of military activities, while Mission San Francisco de Asís
began the missionization of some 10,000 Ohlone who lived in the area. The Mission was also known as Mission Dolores because of its nearness to a creek named after Our Lady of Sorrows. The small settlement that grew up near the Mission was known as Yerba Buena, after the herb
of the same name that grew in abundance there. Today's city took its name from the Mission, and Yerba Buena remained the name of a San Francisco neighborhood until the late 1970s and early 1980s, when the area began to be known as SoMa
. The Moscone Center
and Yerba Buena Gardens
were built within the old Yerba Buena area.
San Francisco became part of the United States
with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
in 1848. San Francisco is now estimated to be the twelfth largest city in the United States, and has been characterized by rapid economic change and cultural diversity.
an visitors to the San Francisco Bay Area
were preceded approximately 8,000 years earlier by Native Americans
. Linguistic and paleontological evidence is controversial as to whether these earliest inhabitants of the area now known as San Francisco were the ancestors of the Ohlone population encountered by the Spanish in the late 18th century. The cultural unit, Ohlone, to which the San Francisco natives belonged did not recognize the city or county boundaries imposed later by Americans, and were part of a contiguous set of bands that lived from south of the Golden Gate to San José.
There is no mention of Native Americans in Sir Francis Drake
's accounts of his trip to the San Francisco Bay in 1579, which is consistent with the seasonal use pattern of the area described in the archaeological record.
When the Spanish arrived, they found the area inhabited by the Yelamu
tribe, which belongs to a linguistic grouping later called the Ohlone
. The Ohlone speakers are distinct from Pomo speakers north of the San Francisco Bay, and are part of the Miwok group of languages. Their traditional territory stretched from Big Sur
to the San Francisco Bay
, although their trading area was much larger. Miwok-speaking Indians also lived in Yosemite, and Ohlone-speakers intermarried with Chumash and Pomo speakers as well.
The Spanish conquest of the San Francisco Bay Area came later than to Southern California. For one thing, San Francisco's characteristic foggy weather
and geography led early European explorers such as Juan Cabrillo to bypass the Golden Gate
and miss entering San Francisco Bay, although it seems clear from historical accounts of navigation that they passed close to the coastline north and south of the Golden Gate.
, led by Portolà and arriving on November 2, 1769, was the first documented European sighting of San Francisco Bay
. Portolà claimed the area for Spain as part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. Seven years later a Spanish mission, Mission San Francisco de Asís
(Mission Dolores), was established by Fra. Junipero Serra
, and a military fort was built, the Presidio of San Francisco
.
In 1786 French explorer, the Comte de la Pérouse
visited San Francisco and left a detailed account of it. Six years later, in 1792 British explorer George Vancouver
also stopped in San Francisco, in part, according to his journal, to spy on the Spanish settlements in the area. In addition to Western Europeans, Russia
n fur-traders also visited the area. From 1770 until about 1841, Russian traders colonized an area that ranged from Alaska
south to Fort Ross in Sonoma County, California. The naming of San Francisco's Russian Hill neighborhood is attributed to the remains of Russian fur-traders and sailors found there.
Upon independence from Spain
in 1821, the area became part of Mexico
. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first significant homestead outside the immediate vicinity of the Mission Dolores, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square
. Together with Alcalde
Francisco de Haro
, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena
after the herb, which was named by the missionaries that found it abundant nearby, began to attract American settlers. In 1838, Richardson petitioned and received a large land grant in Marin County and, in 1841, he moved there to take up residence at Rancho Sauselito. Richardson Bay
to the north bears his name.
The British Empire briefly entertained the idea of purchasing the bay from Mexico in 1841, claiming it would "Secure to Great Britain all the advantages of the finest port in the Pacific for her commercial speculations in time of peace, and in war for more easily securing her maritime ascendency". However little came of this, and San Francisco would become a prize of the United States rather than that of British naval power.
On July 31, 1846, Yerba Buena doubled in population when about 240 Mormon pioneers from the East coast arrived on the ship Brooklyn, led by Sam Brannan. Brannan, also a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, would later become well known for being the first publicist of the California Gold Rush
of 1849 and the first millionaire
resulting from it.
US Navy Commodore John D. Sloat
claimed California for the United States
on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and US Navy Captain John Berrien Montgomery and US Marine Second Lieutenant
Henry Bulls Watson of the USS Portsmouth arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later by raising the flag over the town plaza, which is now Portsmouth Square
in honor of the ship. Henry Bulls Watson was placed in command of the garrison there. In August 1846, Lt. Washington A. Bartlett
was named alcalde
of Yerba Buena. On January 30, 1847, Lt. Bartlett's proclamation changing the name Yerba Buena to San Francisco took effect. The city and the rest of California officially became American in 1848 by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
, which ended the Mexican-American War. California was admitted to the U.S. as a state on September 9, 1850—the State of California soon chartered San Francisco as both a City and a County.
Situated at the tip of a windswept peninsula without water or firewood, San Francisco lacked most of the basic facilities for a 19th century settlement. These natural disadvantages forced the town's residents to bring water, fuel and food to the site. The first of many environmental transformations was the city's reliance on filled marshlands for real estate. Much of the present downtown is built over the former Yerba Buena Cove, granted to the city by military governor Stephen Watts Kearny in 1847.
The California gold rush
starting in 1848 led to a large boom in population, including considerable immigration
. Between January 1848 and December 1849, the population of San Francisco increased from 1,000 to 25,000. The rapid growth continued through the 1850s and under the influence of the 1859 Comstock Lode
silver discovery. This rapid growth complicated city planning efforts, leaving a legacy of narrow streets that continues to cause traffic problems today. San Francisco became America's largest city west of the Mississippi River
, until it lost that title to Los Angeles
in 1920.
The population boom included many workers from China who came to work in the gold mines and later on the Transcontinental Railroad
. The Chinatown district of the city became and is still one of the largest in the country; today as a result of that legacy, the city as a whole is roughly one-fifth Chinese
, one of the largest concentrations outside of China
. Many businesses founded to service the growing population exist today, notably Levi Strauss & Co.
clothing, Ghirardelli
chocolate
, and Wells Fargo
bank. Many famous railroad, banking, and mining tycoons or "robber barons
" such as Charles Crocker
, Mark Hopkins, Collis P. Huntington
, and Leland Stanford
settled in the city in its Nob Hill neighborhood. The sites of their mansions are now famous and expensive San Francisco hotels (Mark Hopkins Hotel and the Huntington Hotel
).
As in many mining towns, the social climate in early San Francisco was chaotic. Committees of Vigilance
were formed in 1851, and again in 1856, in response to crime and government corruption. This popular militia movement lynched
12 people, kidnapped hundreds of Irishmen and government militia members, and forced several elected officials to resign. The Committee of Vigilance relinquished power both times after it decided the city had been "cleaned up." This mob activity later focused on Chinese immigrants, creating many race riots. These riots culminated in the creation of the Chinese Exclusion Act
in 1882 that aimed to reduce Chinese immigration to the United States by limiting immigration to males and reducing numbers of immigrants allowed in the city. The law was not repealed until 1943 with the Magnuson Act
.
The City of San Francisco was the county seat
of the County of San Francisco from 1849 to 1856. Until 1856, the city limits
extended west to Divisadero Street and Castro Street and south to 20th Street. In response to the lawlessness and vigilantism that escalated rapidly between 1855 and 1856, the State of California decided to divide the County; and carved out the city core from the rest of San Francisco County. A straight line was drawn across the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula just north of San Bruno Mountain
. Everything south of the line became the new County of San Mateo
, while everything north of the line became part of the new consolidated City-County of San Francisco—California's first and, to date, only consolidated city-county
.
In autumn of 1855, a ship bearing refugees from an ongoing cholera
epidemic
in the Far East (authorities disagree as to whether this was the S.S. Sam or the S.S. Carolina but primary documents indicate that the Caroline was involved in the epidemic of 1850 and the SS Uncle Sam in the epidemic of 1855) docked in San Francisco. As the city's rapid Gold Rush area population growth had significantly outstripped the development of infrastructure, including sanitation
, a serious cholera epidemic quickly broke out. The responsibility for caring for the indigent sick had previously rested on the state, but faced with the San Francisco cholera epidemic, the state legislature devolved this responsibility to the counties, setting the precedent for California's system of county hospitals for the poor still in effect today. The Sisters of Mercy
were contracted to run San Francisco's first county hospital, the State Marine and County Hospital, due to their efficiency in handling the cholera epidemic of 1855. By 1857, the order opened St. Mary's Hospital on Stockton Street, the first Catholic hospital west of the Rocky Mountains. In 1905, The Sisters of Mercy purchased a lot at Fulton and Stanyan Streets, the current location of St. Mary's Medical Center, the oldest continually operating hospital in San Francisco.
Due to the Gold Rush, and despite the Vigilantes, and the gradual implementation of law and order in San Francisco, its red-light district
at the time became known as the Barbary Coast
which became a hotbed of gambling
, prostitution
and most notoriously for Shanghaiing
. It is now overlapped by Chinatown
, North Beach
, Jackson Square, and the Financial District
.
It was during the 1860s to the 1880s when San Francisco began to transform into a major city, starting with massive expansion in all directions, creating new neighborhoods such as the Western Addition, the Haight-Ashbury, Eureka Valley, the Mission District, culminating in the construction of Golden Gate Park
in 1887. The City's famous Cable Cars
were built around this time, a unique invention devised by Andrew Smith Hallidie
in order to traverse the City's steep hills while connecting the new residential developments. San Francisco grew in cultural prominence at this time as famous writers Mark Twain
, Bret Harte
, Ambrose Bierce
, Rudyard Kipling
, Robert Louis Stevenson
, and Oscar Wilde
spent time in the city, while local characters developed such as Emperor Norton.
By the 1890s, much like across the United States, San Francisco was suffering from machine politics
and corruption, and was ripe for political reform. Adolph Sutro
ran for mayor in 1894 under the auspices of the Populist Party and won handily without campaigning. Unfortunately, except for the Sutro Baths
, Mayor Sutro substantially failed in his efforts to improve the city.
The next mayor, James D. Phelan
elected in 1896, was more successful, pushing through a new city charter that allowed for the ability to raise funds through bond issues. He was able to get bonds passed to construct a new sewer system, seventeen new schools, two parks, a hospital, and a main library. After leaving office in 1901, Phelan became interested in remaking San Francisco into a grand and modern Paris
of the West.
In 1900, a ship brought with it rats infected with bubonic plague
. Mistakenly believing that interred corpses contributed to the transmission of plague, and possibly also motivated by the opportunity for profitable land speculation, city leaders banned all burials within the city. Cemeteries moved to the undeveloped area just south of the city limit, now the town of Colma, California
. A fifteen-block section of Chinatown was quarantined while city leaders squabbled over the proper course to take, but the outbreak was finally eradicated by 1905. However, the problem of existing cemeteries and the shortage of land in the city remained. In 1912 (with fights extending until 1942), all remaining cemeteries in the city were evicted to Colma, where the dead now outnumber the living by more than a thousand to one. The above-ground Columbarium of San Francisco
was allowed to remain, as well as the historic cemetery at Mission Dolores, the grave of Thomas Starr King
at the Unitarian Church, and the San Francisco National Cemetery at the Presidio of San Francisco
.
On April 18, 1906, a devastating earthquake
resulted from the rupture of over 270 miles of the San Andreas Fault
, from San Juan Bautista
to Eureka
, centered immediately offshore of San Francisco. The quake is estimated by the USGS
to have had a magnitude of 7.8 on the Richter scale. Water mains ruptured throughout San Francisco, and the fires that followed burned out of control for days, destroying approximately 80% of the city, including almost all of the downtown core. Many residents were trapped between the water on three sides and the approaching fire, and a mass evacuation across the Bay saved thousands. Refugee camps were also set up in Golden Gate Park
, Ocean Beach, and other undeveloped sections of the city. The official death toll at the time was 478, although it was officially revised in 2005 to 3,000+. The initial low death toll was concocted by civic, state, and federal officials who felt that reporting the actual numbers would hurt rebuilding and redevelopment efforts, as well as city and national morale.
. His bold plan called for Haussmann
style avenues, boulevards, and arterial thoroughfares that radiated across the city, a massive civic center complex with classical structures, what would have been the largest urban park in the world, stretching from Twin Peaks
to Lake Merced
with a large athenaeum at its peak, and various other proposals. This plan was dismissed at the time and by critics now, as impractical and unrealistic to municipal supply and demand. Property owners and the Real Estate industry were against the idea as well due to the amounts of their land the city would have to purchase to realize such proposals. While the original street grid was restored, many of Burnham's proposals eventually saw the light of day such as a neo-classical
civic center complex, wider streets, a preference of arterial thoroughfares, a subway under Market Street, a more people friendly Fisherman's Wharf, and a monument to the city on Telegraph Hill
, Coit Tower
.
In 1907 and 08, the city was rocked by graft investigations and trials involving bribery of the Board of Supervisors from so-called public service corporations that put mayor Eugene Schmitz
and Abe Ruef
in jail.
, Piedmont
and Berkeley
, and northern San Mateo County from San Bruno
northwards would have become outer Borough
s of San Francisco, with the City and County of San Francisco functioning as Manhattan
, based on the New York City
model. East Bay
opposition defeated the San Francisco expansion plan in the California legislature, and later attempts at San Francisco Bay Area metropolitan area consolidation in 1917, 1923, and 1928 also failed to be implemented.
In 1915, the city hosted the Panama-Pacific Exposition, officially to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal
, but also as a showcase of the vibrant completely rebuilt city less than a decade after the Earthquake. After the exposition ended, all of its grand buildings were demolished except for the rebuilt Palace of Fine Arts
which survives today in an abbreviated form, while the remainder of the fairgrounds were re-developed into the Marina District.
_enters_san_francisco_bay,_december_1942.jpg)
1934 saw San Francisco become the center of the West Coast waterfront strike. Lasted eighty-three days, two workers were killed, but the result led to the unionization of all of the West Coast ports of the United States.
The San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge was opened in 1936 and the Golden Gate Bridge
in 1937. The 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition
was held on Treasure Island
. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz
, a former military
stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone
, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz.
During World War II
, San Francisco was the major mainland supply point and port of embarkation for the war in the Pacific. It also saw the largest and oldest enclave of Japanese outside of Japan, Japantown, completely empty out many of its residents as a result of Executive Order 9066
that forced all Japanese of birth or decent in the United States to be interned
. By 1943 many large sections of the neighborhood remained vacant due to the forced internment. The void was quickly filled by thousands of African Americans who had left the South to find wartime industrial jobs in California as part of the Great Migration
. Many African Americans also settled in the Fillmore District and most notably near the Bayview-Hunters Point shipyards, working in the dry-docks there. The same docks at Hunters Point would be used for loading the key fissile components of the first atomic bomb onto the USS Indianapolis
in July 1945 for transfer to Tinian
.
The War Memorial Opera House
which opened in 1932, was the site of some significant post World War II history. In 1945, the conference that formed the United Nations
was held there, with the UN Charter being signed nearby in the Herbst Theatre
on June 26. Additionally the Treaty of San Francisco
which formally ended war with Japan
and established peaceful relations, was drafted and signed here six years later in 1951.
After World War II, many American military personnel who fell in love with the city when they left for or returning from the Pacific, settled in the city, prompting the creation of the Sunset District, Visitacion Valley, and the total build out of San Francisco. During this period, Caltrans commenced an aggressive freeway construction program in the Bay Area. However, Caltrans soon encountered strong resistance in San Francisco, for the city's high population density
meant that virtually any right-of-way would displace a large number of people. Caltrans tried to minimize displacement (and its land acquisition costs) by building double-decker freeways, but the crude state of civil engineering
at that time resulted in construction of some embarrassingly ugly freeways which ultimately turned out to be seismically unsafe. In 1959, the Board of Supervisors voted to halt construction of any more freeways in the city, an event known as the Freeway Revolt. Although some minor modifications have been allowed to the ends of existing freeways, the city's anti-freeway policy has remained in place ever since.
1958 saw the New York Giants move to San Francisco to become the San Francisco Giants
, with their first stadium, Candlestick Park constructed in 1959.
to head the redevelopment agency for the city and county. Justin Herman began an aggressive campaign to tear down so-called blighted areas of the city that were really working class, non-white neighborhoods. Enacting eminent domain
whenever necessary, he set upon a plan to tear down huge areas of the city and replace them with modern construction. Critics accused Herman of racism for what was perceived as attempts to create segregation and displacement of blacks. Many black residents were forced to move from their homes near the Fillmore jazz district to newly constructed projects such as the near the naval base Hunter's Point or even to cities such as Oakland
. He began leveling entire areas in San Francisco's Western Addition and Japantown
neighborhoods. Herman also completed the final removal of the produce district below Telegraph Hill
, moving the produce merchants to the Alemany boulevard site. His planning led to the creation of Embarcadero Center
, the Embarcadero Freeway, Japantown, the Geary Street superblocks, and eventually Yerba Buena Gardens
.
. During the 1950s, City Lights Bookstore
in the North Beach neighborhood was an important publisher of Beat Generation
literature. Some of the story of the evolving arts scene of the 1950s is told in the article San Francisco Renaissance
. During the latter half of the following decade, the 1960s, San Francisco was the center of hippie
and other alternative culture.
In 1967, thousands of young people entered the Haight-Ashbury district during what became known as the Summer of Love
. The San Francisco Sound
emerged as an influential force in rock music
, with such acts as Jefferson Airplane
and the Grateful Dead
achieving international prominence. These groups blurred the boundaries between folk, rock and jazz traditions and further developed rock's lyrical content.
San Francisco's frontier spirit and wild and ribald character started its reputation as a gay mecca in the first half of the 20th century. World War II saw a jump in the gay population when the US military actively sought out and dishonorably discharged homosexuals. From 1941 to 1945, more than 9,000 gay servicemen and women were discharged, and many were processed out in San Francisco. The late 1960s also brought in a new wave of lesbian
s and gay
s who were more radical and less mainstream and who had flocked to San Francisco not only for its gay-friendly reputation, but for its reputation as a radical, left-wing center. These new residents were the prime movers of Gay Liberation
and often lived communally, buying decrepit Victorians
in the Haight and fixing them up. When drugs and violence began to become a serious problem in the Haight, many lesbians and gays simply moved "over the hill" to the Castro replacing Irish-Americans who had moved to the more affluent and culturally homogeneous suburbs. The Castro became known as a Gay Mecca, and its gay population swelled as significant numbers of gay people moved to San Francisco in the 1970s and 1980s. The growth of the gay population caused tensions with some of the established ethnic groups in the southern part of the city. On November 27, 1978 Dan White
, a former member of the Board of Supervisors and former police officer, assassinated
the city's mayor George Moscone
and San Francisco's first openly gay elected official, Supervisor Harvey Milk
. The murders and the subsequent trial were marked both by candlelight vigils and riots within the gay community. In the 1980s, the HIV (formerly called LAV, HTLV-III, also known as AIDS
virus) created havoc on the gay male community. Today, the gay, lesbian, and bisexual populations of the city are estimated to be approximately 15%, and they remain influential in the city's life.
During the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s San Francisco became a major focal point in the North American—and international-- punk
, thrash metal
, and rave
scenes.
The 1970s also brought other major changes to the city such as the construction of its first subway system, BART, which connects San Francisco with other cities in the Bay Area in 1972. At stations in downtown San Francisco, BART connects with MUNI, the city subway, which has lines that run underground along Market Street, and then along surface streets through much of the city. .San Francisco's tallest building, the Transamerica Pyramid
was also completed during that year. San Francisco also saw a wave of violence during this time such as the Zebra Killings, the Zodiac Murders
, and the Golden Dragon massacre
.
During the administration of Mayor Dianne Feinstein
(1978–1988), San Francisco saw a development boom referred to as "Manhattanization
." Many large skyscrapers were built — primarily in the Financial District — but the boom also included high-rise condominiums in some residential neighborhoods. An opposition movement gained traction among those who felt the skyscrapers ruined views and destroyed San Francisco's unique character. Similar to the freeway revolt in the city decades earlier, a "skyscraper revolt" forced the city to embed height restrictions in the planning code. For many years, the limits slowed construction of new skyscrapers. She had also spearheaded the development and construction of the city's convention center, the Moscone Center
, preserved and renovated the city's Cable Cars, and attracted the 1984 Democratic National Convention
.
During the early 1980s, homeless people began appearing in large numbers in the city, the result of multiple factors including the closing of state institutions for the mentally ill, the Reagan administration
drastically cutting Section 8
housing benefits, and social changes which increased the availability of addictive drugs
. Combined with San Francisco's attractive environment and generous welfare policies the problem soon became endemic. Mayor Art Agnos (1988–92) was the first to attack the problem, and not the last; it is a top issue for San Franciscans even today. Agnos allowed the homeless to camp in the Civic Center park, which led to its title of "Camp Agnos." The failure of this policy led to his losing the election to Frank Jordan
in 1991. Jordan launched the "MATRIX" program the next year, which aimed to displace the homeless through aggressive police action. And it did displace them - to the rest of the city. His successor, Willie Lewis Brown, Jr., was able to largely ignore the problem, riding on the strong economy into a second term. Present mayor Gavin Newsom
's policy on the homeless is the controversial "Care Not Cash" program, which calls for ending the city's generous welfare policies towards the homeless and instead placing them in affordable housing and requiring them to attend city funded drug rehabilitation
and job training programs.
In August 1989, San Francisco was surpassed for the first time in population by San Jose
(located in silicon valley
), the world center of the computer industry
. San Jose has continued since then to grow in population since it is surrounded by large tracts of developable land
. Thus, San Francisco is now the second largest city in population in the San Francisco Bay Area
after San Jose.
struck on the San Andreas Fault
near Loma Prieta Peak in the Santa Cruz mountains, approximately 70 miles (113 km) south of San Francisco, a few minutes before Game 3 of the 1989 World Series
was scheduled to begin at Candlestick Park. The quake severely damaged many of the city's freeways including the Embarcadero Freeway and the Central Freeway
. The quake also caused extensive damage in the Marina District and the South of Market neighborhoods. Despite the significant destruction the earthquake had caused throughout the greater Bay Area, only 67 died. The World Series resumed a week later with the loss of the Giants to the Oakland A's.
plan, the former military bases of San Francisco Naval Shipyard
in Bayview-Hunters Point was closed and returned to the city while the Presidio was turned over to the National Park Service and since converted a into national park.
In 1996, the city elected its first and to date only African American mayor, former Speaker of the California State Assembly, Willie Brown
. Brown called for expansions to the San Francisco budget to provide for new employees and programs. During Brown's tenure, San Francisco’s budget increased to US$5.2 billion and the city added 4,000 new employees. His tenure saw the development and construction of the new Mission Bay neighborhood, and baseball stadium for the Giants, AT&T Park
which was 100% privately financed.
of the late 1990s, large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer software professionals moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, and changed the social landscape as once poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. The rising rents forced many people, families, and businesses to leave. San Francisco has the smallest share of children of any major U.S. city, with the city's 18 and under population at just 14.5 percent. http://news.sfobserver.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=8351949ee6ac559b5939f034bd28f1ef
that saw the creation of many new internet and software start-up companies in the city, attracting white-collar workers to recent University graduate young adults from all over the world. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/06/22/MNG6HJIDMM1.DTL http://www.sfgov.org/site/uploadedfiles/moed/economic_strat/ExecutiveSummary_EconomicPerformanceReview.pdf Residential demand as well as rents rose again, and as a result of such demand, city officials relaxed building height restrictions and zoning codes to construct residential condominiums in SOMA
such as One Rincon Hill
, 300 Spear Street, and Millennium Tower, although the late 2000s recession has indefinitely halted many construction projects such as Rincon Hill. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/07/BA6Q1A1V5H.DTL Part of this development is the reconstruction of the Transbay Terminal
Replacement Project
.
2010 also saw the San Francisco Giants win their first World Series title since moving from New York City. The estimated 1 million people that attended their victory parade is considered one of the largest in city history. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/11/04/MNM51G6DMS.DTL
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, and its development as a center of maritime trade, have been greatly influenced by its location at the entrance to one of the world's best natural harbors. San Francisco is the name of both the city and the county, which share the same boundaries.
The first Native Americans
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
to settle this region found the Bay to be a vast natural resource for hunting and gathering their provisions and for the establishment of many small villages. Collectively, these early Native Americans were known as the Ohlone
Ohlone
The Ohlone people, also known as the Costanoan, are a Native American people of the central California coast. When Spanish explorers and missionaries arrived in the late 18th century, the Ohlone inhabited the area along the coast from San Francisco Bay through Monterey Bay to the lower Salinas Valley...
, and the language they spoke belonged to the Miwok
Miwok
Miwok can refer to any one of four linguistically related groups of Native Americans, native to Northern California, who spoke one of the Miwokan languages in the Utian family...
family. Their trade patterns included places as far away as Baja California, the Mojave Desert and Yosemite.
The first Europeans to see what would become San Francisco were members of a Spanish exploratory voyage led by Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo
Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo
Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo was a Portuguese explorer noted for his exploration of the west coast of North America on behalf of Spain. Cabrillo was the first European explorer to navigate the coast of present day California in the United States...
. Cabrillo, sailing north from Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, explored the coast as far north as Point Reyes, but failed to discover the entrance to San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean...
. An English expedition led by Sir Francis Drake
Francis Drake
Sir Francis Drake, Vice Admiral was an English sea captain, privateer, navigator, slaver, and politician of the Elizabethan era. Elizabeth I of England awarded Drake a knighthood in 1581. He was second-in-command of the English fleet against the Spanish Armada in 1588. He also carried out the...
also sailed past the bay entrance, in 1579. Drake mapped the coast and called the cliffs by the bay Nova Albion, but made little effort to claim or settle the land.
The earliest European colonial enterprises came in 1796, led north from Mexico by Spaniards Don Gaspar de Portolà
Gaspar de Portolà
Gaspar de Portolà i Rovira was a soldier, governor of Baja and Alta California , explorer and founder of San Diego and Monterey. He was born in Os de Balaguer, province of Lleida, in Catalonia, Spain, of Catalan nobility. Don Gaspar served as a soldier in the Spanish army in Italy and Portugal...
and Fra. Junipero Serra
Junípero Serra
Blessed Junípero Serra, O.F.M., , known as Fra Juníper Serra in Catalan, his mother tongue was a Majorcan Franciscan friar who founded the mission chain in Alta California of the Las Californias Province in New Spain—present day California, United States. Fr...
. The Spanish found this location to be of great strategic significance, establishing both military and religious settlements. The Presidio of San Francisco
Presidio of San Francisco
The Presidio of San Francisco is a park on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula in San Francisco, California, within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area...
was the center of military activities, while Mission San Francisco de Asís
Mission San Francisco de Asís
Mission San Francisco de Asís, or Mission Dolores, is the oldest surviving structure in San Francisco and the sixth religious settlement established as part of the California chain of missions...
began the missionization of some 10,000 Ohlone who lived in the area. The Mission was also known as Mission Dolores because of its nearness to a creek named after Our Lady of Sorrows. The small settlement that grew up near the Mission was known as Yerba Buena, after the herb
Yerba Buena
Yerba buena is a rambling aromatic herb of western and northwestern North America, ranging from maritime Alaska southwards to Baja California Sur...
of the same name that grew in abundance there. Today's city took its name from the Mission, and Yerba Buena remained the name of a San Francisco neighborhood until the late 1970s and early 1980s, when the area began to be known as SoMa
Soma
Soma , or Haoma , from Proto-Indo-Iranian *sauma-, was a ritual drink of importance among the early Indo-Iranians, and the subsequent Vedic and greater Persian cultures. It is frequently mentioned in the Rigveda, whose Soma Mandala contains 114 hymns, many praising its energizing qualities...
. The Moscone Center
Moscone Center
Moscone Center is the largest convention and exhibition complex in San Francisco, California. It comprises three main halls: Two underground halls underneath Yerba Buena Gardens, known as Moscone North and Moscone South, and a three-level Moscone West exhibition hall across 4th Street...
and Yerba Buena Gardens
Yerba Buena Gardens
Yerba Buena Gardens is the name for two blocks of public parks located between Third and Fourth, Mission and Folsom Streets in downtown San Francisco, California. The first block bordered by Mission and Howard Streets was opened in 1993. The second block, between Howard and Folsom Streets was...
were built within the old Yerba Buena area.
San Francisco became part of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is the peace treaty, largely dictated by the United States to the interim government of a militarily occupied Mexico City, that ended the Mexican-American War on February 2, 1848...
in 1848. San Francisco is now estimated to be the twelfth largest city in the United States, and has been characterized by rapid economic change and cultural diversity.
Precolonial history
EuropeEurope
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an visitors to the San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
were preceded approximately 8,000 years earlier by Native Americans
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
. Linguistic and paleontological evidence is controversial as to whether these earliest inhabitants of the area now known as San Francisco were the ancestors of the Ohlone population encountered by the Spanish in the late 18th century. The cultural unit, Ohlone, to which the San Francisco natives belonged did not recognize the city or county boundaries imposed later by Americans, and were part of a contiguous set of bands that lived from south of the Golden Gate to San José.
There is no mention of Native Americans in Sir Francis Drake
Francis Drake
Sir Francis Drake, Vice Admiral was an English sea captain, privateer, navigator, slaver, and politician of the Elizabethan era. Elizabeth I of England awarded Drake a knighthood in 1581. He was second-in-command of the English fleet against the Spanish Armada in 1588. He also carried out the...
's accounts of his trip to the San Francisco Bay in 1579, which is consistent with the seasonal use pattern of the area described in the archaeological record.
When the Spanish arrived, they found the area inhabited by the Yelamu
Yelamu
The Yelamu were a Native American tribe of Ohlone people from the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California.-History:The Yelamu lived on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula in the region comprising the City and County of San Francisco before the arrival of Spanish missionaries in 1769...
tribe, which belongs to a linguistic grouping later called the Ohlone
Ohlone
The Ohlone people, also known as the Costanoan, are a Native American people of the central California coast. When Spanish explorers and missionaries arrived in the late 18th century, the Ohlone inhabited the area along the coast from San Francisco Bay through Monterey Bay to the lower Salinas Valley...
. The Ohlone speakers are distinct from Pomo speakers north of the San Francisco Bay, and are part of the Miwok group of languages. Their traditional territory stretched from Big Sur
Big Sur
Big Sur is a sparsely populated region of the Central Coast of California where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise abruptly from the Pacific Ocean. The name "Big Sur" is derived from the original Spanish-language "el sur grande", meaning "the big south", or from "el país grande del sur", "the big...
to the San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean...
, although their trading area was much larger. Miwok-speaking Indians also lived in Yosemite, and Ohlone-speakers intermarried with Chumash and Pomo speakers as well.
The Spanish conquest of the San Francisco Bay Area came later than to Southern California. For one thing, San Francisco's characteristic foggy weather
San Francisco Fog
San Francisco Fog Rugby Football Club , also known as "The Fog", is a rugby union football club in San Francisco, California. It is the first such team in the western United States established specifically to actively reach out to traditionally under-represented groups in rugby; such as people of...
and geography led early European explorers such as Juan Cabrillo to bypass the Golden Gate
Golden Gate
The Golden Gate is the North American strait connecting San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean. Since 1937 it has been spanned by the Golden Gate Bridge...
and miss entering San Francisco Bay, although it seems clear from historical accounts of navigation that they passed close to the coastline north and south of the Golden Gate.
Arrival of Europeans and early settlement
A Spanish exploration partySpanish colonization of the Americas
Colonial expansion under the Spanish Empire was initiated by the Spanish conquistadores and developed by the Monarchy of Spain through its administrators and missionaries. The motivations for colonial expansion were trade and the spread of the Christian faith through indigenous conversions...
, led by Portolà and arriving on November 2, 1769, was the first documented European sighting of San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean...
. Portolà claimed the area for Spain as part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. Seven years later a Spanish mission, Mission San Francisco de Asís
Mission San Francisco de Asís
Mission San Francisco de Asís, or Mission Dolores, is the oldest surviving structure in San Francisco and the sixth religious settlement established as part of the California chain of missions...
(Mission Dolores), was established by Fra. Junipero Serra
Junípero Serra
Blessed Junípero Serra, O.F.M., , known as Fra Juníper Serra in Catalan, his mother tongue was a Majorcan Franciscan friar who founded the mission chain in Alta California of the Las Californias Province in New Spain—present day California, United States. Fr...
, and a military fort was built, the Presidio of San Francisco
Presidio of San Francisco
The Presidio of San Francisco is a park on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula in San Francisco, California, within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area...
.
In 1786 French explorer, the Comte de la Pérouse
Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse
Jean François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse was a French Navy officer and explorer whose expedition vanished in Oceania.-Early career:...
visited San Francisco and left a detailed account of it. Six years later, in 1792 British explorer George Vancouver
George Vancouver
Captain George Vancouver RN was an English officer of the British Royal Navy, best known for his 1791-95 expedition, which explored and charted North America's northwestern Pacific Coast regions, including the coasts of contemporary Alaska, British Columbia, Washington and Oregon...
also stopped in San Francisco, in part, according to his journal, to spy on the Spanish settlements in the area. In addition to Western Europeans, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n fur-traders also visited the area. From 1770 until about 1841, Russian traders colonized an area that ranged from Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
south to Fort Ross in Sonoma County, California. The naming of San Francisco's Russian Hill neighborhood is attributed to the remains of Russian fur-traders and sailors found there.
Upon independence from Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
in 1821, the area became part of Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first significant homestead outside the immediate vicinity of the Mission Dolores, near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square
Portsmouth Square
Portsmouth Square is a one-block park in Chinatown, San Francisco, California, that is bounded by Kearny Street on the east, Washington Street on the north, Clay Street on the south, and Walter Lum Place on the west....
. Together with Alcalde
Alcalde
Alcalde , or Alcalde ordinario, is the traditional Spanish municipal magistrate, who had both judicial and administrative functions. An alcalde was, in the absence of a corregidor, the presiding officer of the Castilian cabildo and judge of first instance of a town...
Francisco de Haro
Francisco de Haro
Francisco de Haro was the first Alcalde of Yerba Buena in 1834.-Life:De Haro was born in Compostela, Nayarit, Mexico and came to San Francisco in 1819. He was the first Alcalde of Yerba Buena in 1834. He was instrumental in planning the street grid of the town along with Englishman William A....
, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena
Yerba Buena (town)
Yerba Buena was the original name of San Francisco when in the Spanish Las Californias Province of New Spain, and then after 1822 in the Mexican territory of Alta California, until the Mexican American War ended with the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, when California became a territory of the...
after the herb, which was named by the missionaries that found it abundant nearby, began to attract American settlers. In 1838, Richardson petitioned and received a large land grant in Marin County and, in 1841, he moved there to take up residence at Rancho Sauselito. Richardson Bay
Richardson Bay
Richardson Bay is a shallow, ecologically rich arm of San Francisco Bay, managed under a Joint Powers Agency of four Northern California cities. The Richardson Bay Sanctuary was acquired in the early 1960s by the National Audubon Society. The bay was named for William A...
to the north bears his name.
The British Empire briefly entertained the idea of purchasing the bay from Mexico in 1841, claiming it would "Secure to Great Britain all the advantages of the finest port in the Pacific for her commercial speculations in time of peace, and in war for more easily securing her maritime ascendency". However little came of this, and San Francisco would become a prize of the United States rather than that of British naval power.
On July 31, 1846, Yerba Buena doubled in population when about 240 Mormon pioneers from the East coast arrived on the ship Brooklyn, led by Sam Brannan. Brannan, also a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, would later become well known for being the first publicist of the California Gold Rush
California Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The first to hear confirmed information of the gold rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands , and Latin America, who were the first to start flocking to...
of 1849 and the first millionaire
Millionaire
A millionaire is an individual whose net worth or wealth is equal to or exceeds one million units of currency. It can also be a person who owns one million units of currency in a bank account or savings account...
resulting from it.
John D. Sloat
John Drake Sloat was a commodore in the United States Navy who, in 1846, claimed California for the United States.-Life:...
claimed California for the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
on July 7, 1846, during the Mexican-American War, and US Navy Captain John Berrien Montgomery and US Marine Second Lieutenant
Second Lieutenant
Second lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces.- United Kingdom and Commonwealth :The rank second lieutenant was introduced throughout the British Army in 1871 to replace the rank of ensign , although it had long been used in the Royal Artillery, Royal...
Henry Bulls Watson of the USS Portsmouth arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later by raising the flag over the town plaza, which is now Portsmouth Square
Portsmouth Square
Portsmouth Square is a one-block park in Chinatown, San Francisco, California, that is bounded by Kearny Street on the east, Washington Street on the north, Clay Street on the south, and Walter Lum Place on the west....
in honor of the ship. Henry Bulls Watson was placed in command of the garrison there. In August 1846, Lt. Washington A. Bartlett
Washington Allon Bartlett
Washington Allon Bartlett was the first alcalde of the American-era San Francisco serving from August 14, 1846 to January 31, 1847.-Early life and career:...
was named alcalde
Alcalde
Alcalde , or Alcalde ordinario, is the traditional Spanish municipal magistrate, who had both judicial and administrative functions. An alcalde was, in the absence of a corregidor, the presiding officer of the Castilian cabildo and judge of first instance of a town...
of Yerba Buena. On January 30, 1847, Lt. Bartlett's proclamation changing the name Yerba Buena to San Francisco took effect. The city and the rest of California officially became American in 1848 by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is the peace treaty, largely dictated by the United States to the interim government of a militarily occupied Mexico City, that ended the Mexican-American War on February 2, 1848...
, which ended the Mexican-American War. California was admitted to the U.S. as a state on September 9, 1850—the State of California soon chartered San Francisco as both a City and a County.
Situated at the tip of a windswept peninsula without water or firewood, San Francisco lacked most of the basic facilities for a 19th century settlement. These natural disadvantages forced the town's residents to bring water, fuel and food to the site. The first of many environmental transformations was the city's reliance on filled marshlands for real estate. Much of the present downtown is built over the former Yerba Buena Cove, granted to the city by military governor Stephen Watts Kearny in 1847.
1848 gold rush
California Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The first to hear confirmed information of the gold rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands , and Latin America, who were the first to start flocking to...
starting in 1848 led to a large boom in population, including considerable immigration
Immigration
Immigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence...
. Between January 1848 and December 1849, the population of San Francisco increased from 1,000 to 25,000. The rapid growth continued through the 1850s and under the influence of the 1859 Comstock Lode
Comstock Lode
The Comstock Lode was the first major U.S. discovery of silver ore, located under what is now Virginia City, Nevada, on the eastern slope of Mount Davidson, a peak in the Virginia Range. After the discovery was made public in 1859, prospectors rushed to the area and scrambled to stake their claims...
silver discovery. This rapid growth complicated city planning efforts, leaving a legacy of narrow streets that continues to cause traffic problems today. San Francisco became America's largest city west of the Mississippi River
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
, until it lost that title to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
in 1920.
The population boom included many workers from China who came to work in the gold mines and later on the Transcontinental Railroad
Transcontinental railroad
A transcontinental railroad is a contiguous network of railroad trackage that crosses a continental land mass with terminals at different oceans or continental borders. Such networks can be via the tracks of either a single railroad, or over those owned or controlled by multiple railway companies...
. The Chinatown district of the city became and is still one of the largest in the country; today as a result of that legacy, the city as a whole is roughly one-fifth Chinese
Chinese American
Chinese Americans represent Americans of Chinese descent. Chinese Americans constitute one group of overseas Chinese and also a subgroup of East Asian Americans, which is further a subgroup of Asian Americans...
, one of the largest concentrations outside of China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
. Many businesses founded to service the growing population exist today, notably Levi Strauss & Co.
Levi Strauss & Co.
Levi Strauss & Co. is a privately held American clothing company known worldwide for its Levi's brand of denim jeans. It was founded in 1853 when Levi Strauss came from Buttenheim, Franconia, to San Francisco, California to open a west coast branch of his brothers' New York dry goods business...
clothing, Ghirardelli
Ghirardelli Chocolate Company
The Ghirardelli Chocolate Company is a United States division of Swiss candymaker Lindt & Sprüngli. The company was founded by and is named after Italian chocolatier Domingo Ghirardelli, who, after working in South America, moved to California...
chocolate
Chocolate
Chocolate is a raw or processed food produced from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. Cacao has been cultivated for at least three millennia in Mexico, Central and South America. Its earliest documented use is around 1100 BC...
, and Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo & Company is an American multinational diversified financial services company with operations around the world. Wells Fargo is the fourth largest bank in the U.S. by assets and the largest bank by market capitalization. Wells Fargo is the second largest bank in deposits, home...
bank. Many famous railroad, banking, and mining tycoons or "robber barons
Robber barons
Robber baron may mean:*Robber baron, German nobles who levied illegal tolls in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries*Robber baron , a pejorative term for certain 19th to early 20th century American industrialists...
" such as Charles Crocker
Charles Crocker
Charles Crocker was an American railroad executive.-Early years:Crocker was born in Troy, New York, to a modest family and moved to an Indiana farm at age 14. He soon became independent, working on several farms, a sawmill, and at an iron forge. In 1845 he founded a small, independent iron...
, Mark Hopkins, Collis P. Huntington
Collis P. Huntington
Collis Potter Huntington was one of the Big Four of western railroading who built the Central Pacific Railroad as part of the first U.S. transcontinental railroad...
, and Leland Stanford
Leland Stanford
Amasa Leland Stanford was an American tycoon, industrialist, robber baron, politician and founder of Stanford University.-Early years:...
settled in the city in its Nob Hill neighborhood. The sites of their mansions are now famous and expensive San Francisco hotels (Mark Hopkins Hotel and the Huntington Hotel
Huntington Hotel (San Francisco)
The Huntington Hotel is one of the landmark luxury hotels at the top of the Nob Hill district of San Francisco, California. It is located at 1075 California Street, cross street is Taylor Street. The hotel is a twelve-story, Georgian-style brick building that features 135 guest rooms and suites.-...
).
As in many mining towns, the social climate in early San Francisco was chaotic. Committees of Vigilance
San Francisco Vigilance Movement
The San Francisco Committee of Vigilance was a popular ad hoc organization formed in 1851 and revived in 1856. Their purpose was to rein in rampant crime and government corruption. They were among the most successful organizations in the vigilante tradition of the American Old West.These militias...
were formed in 1851, and again in 1856, in response to crime and government corruption. This popular militia movement lynched
Lynching in the United States
Lynching, the practice of killing people by extrajudicial mob action, occurred in the United States chiefly from the late 18th century through the 1960s. Lynchings took place most frequently in the South from 1890 to the 1920s, with a peak in the annual toll in 1892.It is associated with...
12 people, kidnapped hundreds of Irishmen and government militia members, and forced several elected officials to resign. The Committee of Vigilance relinquished power both times after it decided the city had been "cleaned up." This mob activity later focused on Chinese immigrants, creating many race riots. These riots culminated in the creation of the Chinese Exclusion Act
Chinese Exclusion Act (United States)
The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed by Chester A. Arthur on May 8, 1882, following revisions made in 1880 to the Burlingame Treaty of 1868. Those revisions allowed the U.S. to suspend immigration, and Congress subsequently acted quickly to implement the suspension of...
in 1882 that aimed to reduce Chinese immigration to the United States by limiting immigration to males and reducing numbers of immigrants allowed in the city. The law was not repealed until 1943 with the Magnuson Act
Magnuson Act
The Magnuson Act also known as the Chinese Exclusion Repeal Act of 1943 was immigration legislation proposed by U.S. Representative Warren G. Magnuson of Washington and signed into law on December 17, 1943 in the United States...
.
The City of San Francisco was the county seat
County seat
A county seat is an administrative center, or seat of government, for a county or civil parish. The term is primarily used in the United States....
of the County of San Francisco from 1849 to 1856. Until 1856, the city limits
City limits
The terms city limits and city boundary refer to the defined boundary or border of a city. The area within the city limits is sometimes called the city proper. The terms town limits/boundary and village limits/boundary mean the same as city limits/boundary, but apply to towns and villages...
extended west to Divisadero Street and Castro Street and south to 20th Street. In response to the lawlessness and vigilantism that escalated rapidly between 1855 and 1856, the State of California decided to divide the County; and carved out the city core from the rest of San Francisco County. A straight line was drawn across the tip of the San Francisco Peninsula just north of San Bruno Mountain
San Bruno Mountain
San Bruno Mountain in northern San Mateo County, California is the northernmost part of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Most of the mountain lies within the San Bruno Mountain State Park, a unique open-space island in the midst of the San Francisco Peninsula's urbanization. Next to the state park is the...
. Everything south of the line became the new County of San Mateo
San Mateo County, California
San Mateo County is a county located in the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California. It covers most of the San Francisco Peninsula just south of San Francisco, and north of Santa Clara County. San Francisco International Airport is located at the northern end of the county, and...
, while everything north of the line became part of the new consolidated City-County of San Francisco—California's first and, to date, only consolidated city-county
Consolidated city-county
In United States local government, a consolidated city–county is a city and county that have been merged into one unified jurisdiction. As such it is simultaneously a city, which is a municipal corporation, and a county, which is an administrative division of a state...
.
In autumn of 1855, a ship bearing refugees from an ongoing cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
epidemic
Epidemic
In epidemiology, an epidemic , occurs when new cases of a certain disease, in a given human population, and during a given period, substantially exceed what is expected based on recent experience...
in the Far East (authorities disagree as to whether this was the S.S. Sam or the S.S. Carolina but primary documents indicate that the Caroline was involved in the epidemic of 1850 and the SS Uncle Sam in the epidemic of 1855) docked in San Francisco. As the city's rapid Gold Rush area population growth had significantly outstripped the development of infrastructure, including sanitation
Sanitation
Sanitation is the hygienic means of promoting health through prevention of human contact with the hazards of wastes. Hazards can be either physical, microbiological, biological or chemical agents of disease. Wastes that can cause health problems are human and animal feces, solid wastes, domestic...
, a serious cholera epidemic quickly broke out. The responsibility for caring for the indigent sick had previously rested on the state, but faced with the San Francisco cholera epidemic, the state legislature devolved this responsibility to the counties, setting the precedent for California's system of county hospitals for the poor still in effect today. The Sisters of Mercy
Sisters of Mercy
The Religious Order of the Sisters of Mercy is an order of Catholic women founded by Catherine McAuley in Dublin, Ireland, in 1831. , the order has about 10,000 members worldwide, organized into a number of independent congregations....
were contracted to run San Francisco's first county hospital, the State Marine and County Hospital, due to their efficiency in handling the cholera epidemic of 1855. By 1857, the order opened St. Mary's Hospital on Stockton Street, the first Catholic hospital west of the Rocky Mountains. In 1905, The Sisters of Mercy purchased a lot at Fulton and Stanyan Streets, the current location of St. Mary's Medical Center, the oldest continually operating hospital in San Francisco.
Due to the Gold Rush, and despite the Vigilantes, and the gradual implementation of law and order in San Francisco, its red-light district
Red-light district
A red-light district is a part of an urban area where there is a concentration of prostitution and sex-oriented businesses, such as sex shops, strip clubs, adult theaters, etc...
at the time became known as the Barbary Coast
Barbary Coast, San Francisco, California
Barbary Coast was a red-light district in old San Francisco, California. Geographically it constituted nine blocks bounded by Montgomery Street, Washington Street, Stockton Street, and Broadway...
which became a hotbed of gambling
Gambling
Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods...
, prostitution
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
and most notoriously for Shanghaiing
Shanghaiing
Shanghaiing refers to the practice of conscripting men as sailors by coercive techniques such as trickery, intimidation, or violence. Those engaged in this form of kidnapping were known as crimps. Until 1915, unfree labor was widely used aboard American merchant ships...
. It is now overlapped by Chinatown
Chinatown, San Francisco, California
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest Chinatown in North America and the largest Chinese community outside Asia. Since its establishment in 1848, it has been highly important and influential in the history and culture of ethnic Chinese immigrants to the United States and North America...
, North Beach
North Beach, San Francisco, California
North Beach is a neighborhood in the northeast of San Francisco adjacent to Chinatown, Fisherman's Wharf and Russian Hill. The neighborhood is San Francisco's Little Italy, and has historically been home to a large Italian American population. It still holds many Italian restaurants today, though...
, Jackson Square, and the Financial District
Financial District, San Francisco, California
The Financial District is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California, that serves as its main central business district. The nickname "FiDi" is occasionally employed, analogous to nearby SoMa.-Location:...
.
Paris of the West
Golden Gate Park
Golden Gate Park, located in San Francisco, California, is a large urban park consisting of of public grounds. Configured as a rectangle, it is similar in shape but 20% larger than Central Park in New York, to which it is often compared. It is over three miles long east to west, and about half a...
in 1887. The City's famous Cable Cars
San Francisco cable car system
The San Francisco cable car system is the world's last permanently operational manually operated cable car system, in the US sense of a tramway whose cars are pulled along by cables embedded in the street. It is an icon of San Francisco, California...
were built around this time, a unique invention devised by Andrew Smith Hallidie
Andrew Smith Hallidie
Andrew Smith Hallidie was the promoter of the Clay Street Hill Railroad in San Francisco, USA. This was the world's first practical cable car system, and Hallidie is often therefore regarded as the inventor of the cable car and father of the present day San Francisco cable car system, although...
in order to traverse the City's steep hills while connecting the new residential developments. San Francisco grew in cultural prominence at this time as famous writers Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
, Bret Harte
Bret Harte
Francis Bret Harte was an American author and poet, best remembered for his accounts of pioneering life in California.- Life and career :...
, Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was an American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist and satirist...
, Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...
, Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....
, and Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
spent time in the city, while local characters developed such as Emperor Norton.
By the 1890s, much like across the United States, San Francisco was suffering from machine politics
Political machine
A political machine is a political organization in which an authoritative boss or small group commands the support of a corps of supporters and businesses , who receive rewards for their efforts...
and corruption, and was ripe for political reform. Adolph Sutro
Adolph Sutro
Adolph Heinrich Joseph Sutro was the 24th mayor of San Francisco, and second Jewish mayor, serving in that office from 1894 until 1896...
ran for mayor in 1894 under the auspices of the Populist Party and won handily without campaigning. Unfortunately, except for the Sutro Baths
Sutro Baths
The Sutro Baths were a large, privately owned swimming pool complex in San Francisco, California, built in the late 19th century. The building housing the baths burned down in 1966 and was abandoned. The ruins may still be visited.- History :...
, Mayor Sutro substantially failed in his efforts to improve the city.
The next mayor, James D. Phelan
James D. Phelan
James Duval Phelan was an American politician, civic leader and banker.-Early years:Phelan was born in San Francisco, the son of an Irish immigrant who became wealthy during the California Gold Rush as a trader, merchant and banker. He graduated from St...
elected in 1896, was more successful, pushing through a new city charter that allowed for the ability to raise funds through bond issues. He was able to get bonds passed to construct a new sewer system, seventeen new schools, two parks, a hospital, and a main library. After leaving office in 1901, Phelan became interested in remaking San Francisco into a grand and modern Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
of the West.
In 1900, a ship brought with it rats infected with bubonic plague
Bubonic plague
Plague is a deadly infectious disease that is caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis, named after the French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin. Primarily carried by rodents and spread to humans via fleas, the disease is notorious throughout history, due to the unrivaled scale of death...
. Mistakenly believing that interred corpses contributed to the transmission of plague, and possibly also motivated by the opportunity for profitable land speculation, city leaders banned all burials within the city. Cemeteries moved to the undeveloped area just south of the city limit, now the town of Colma, California
Colma, California
Colma is a small incorporated town in San Mateo County, California, at the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area. The population was 1,792 at the 2010 census. The town was founded as a necropolis in 1924....
. A fifteen-block section of Chinatown was quarantined while city leaders squabbled over the proper course to take, but the outbreak was finally eradicated by 1905. However, the problem of existing cemeteries and the shortage of land in the city remained. In 1912 (with fights extending until 1942), all remaining cemeteries in the city were evicted to Colma, where the dead now outnumber the living by more than a thousand to one. The above-ground Columbarium of San Francisco
Columbarium of San Francisco
The Neptune Society Columbarium of San Francisco is a repository for human ashes owned and operated by the Neptune Society of Northern California, at One Loraine Court, near Stanyan and Anza Streets, just north of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, California. Built in 1898 by architect Bernard...
was allowed to remain, as well as the historic cemetery at Mission Dolores, the grave of Thomas Starr King
Thomas Starr King
Thomas Starr King was an American Unitarian and Universalist minister, influential in California politics during the American Civil War. Starr King spoke zealously in favor of the Union and was credited by Abraham Lincoln with preventing California from becoming a separate republic...
at the Unitarian Church, and the San Francisco National Cemetery at the Presidio of San Francisco
Presidio of San Francisco
The Presidio of San Francisco is a park on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula in San Francisco, California, within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area...
.
1906 earthquake and fire
1906 San Francisco earthquake
The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 was a major earthquake that struck San Francisco, California, and the coast of Northern California at 5:12 a.m. on Wednesday, April 18, 1906. The most widely accepted estimate for the magnitude of the earthquake is a moment magnitude of 7.9; however, other...
resulted from the rupture of over 270 miles of the San Andreas Fault
San Andreas Fault
The San Andreas Fault is a continental strike-slip fault that runs a length of roughly through California in the United States. The fault's motion is right-lateral strike-slip...
, from San Juan Bautista
San Juan Bautista, California
San Juan Bautista is a city in San Benito County, California, United States. The population was 1,862 at the 2010 census, up from 1,549 at the 2000 census. The city of San Juan Bautista was named after Mission San Juan Bautista...
to Eureka
Eureka, California
Eureka is the principal city and the county seat of Humboldt County, California, United States. Its population was 27,191 at the 2010 census, up from 26,128 at the 2000 census....
, centered immediately offshore of San Francisco. The quake is estimated by the USGS
United States Geological Survey
The United States Geological Survey is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, and the natural hazards that threaten it. The organization has four major science disciplines, concerning biology,...
to have had a magnitude of 7.8 on the Richter scale. Water mains ruptured throughout San Francisco, and the fires that followed burned out of control for days, destroying approximately 80% of the city, including almost all of the downtown core. Many residents were trapped between the water on three sides and the approaching fire, and a mass evacuation across the Bay saved thousands. Refugee camps were also set up in Golden Gate Park
Golden Gate Park
Golden Gate Park, located in San Francisco, California, is a large urban park consisting of of public grounds. Configured as a rectangle, it is similar in shape but 20% larger than Central Park in New York, to which it is often compared. It is over three miles long east to west, and about half a...
, Ocean Beach, and other undeveloped sections of the city. The official death toll at the time was 478, although it was officially revised in 2005 to 3,000+. The initial low death toll was concocted by civic, state, and federal officials who felt that reporting the actual numbers would hurt rebuilding and redevelopment efforts, as well as city and national morale.
Reconstruction
Almost immediately after the quake re-planning and reconstruction plans were hatched to quickly rebuild the city. One of the more famous and ambitious plans, proposed before the fire, came from famed urban planner, Daniel BurnhamDaniel Burnham
Daniel Hudson Burnham, FAIA was an American architect and urban planner. He was the Director of Works for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He took a leading role in the creation of master plans for the development of a number of cities, including Chicago and downtown Washington DC...
. His bold plan called for Haussmann
Baron Haussmann
Georges-Eugène Haussmann, commonly known as Baron Haussmann , was a French civic planner whose name is associated with the rebuilding of Paris...
style avenues, boulevards, and arterial thoroughfares that radiated across the city, a massive civic center complex with classical structures, what would have been the largest urban park in the world, stretching from Twin Peaks
Twin Peaks
Twin Peaks is an American television serial drama created by David Lynch and Mark Frost. The series follows the investigation headed by FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper , of the murder of a popular teenager and homecoming queen, Laura Palmer...
to Lake Merced
Lake Merced
Lake Merced is a freshwater lake in the southwest corner of San Francisco. It is surrounded by three golf courses , as well as residential areas, Lowell High School, San Francisco State University, Fort Funston and the Pacific Ocean...
with a large athenaeum at its peak, and various other proposals. This plan was dismissed at the time and by critics now, as impractical and unrealistic to municipal supply and demand. Property owners and the Real Estate industry were against the idea as well due to the amounts of their land the city would have to purchase to realize such proposals. While the original street grid was restored, many of Burnham's proposals eventually saw the light of day such as a neo-classical
Neoclassical architecture
Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...
civic center complex, wider streets, a preference of arterial thoroughfares, a subway under Market Street, a more people friendly Fisherman's Wharf, and a monument to the city on Telegraph Hill
Telegraph Hill, San Francisco
Telegraph Hill refers to a neighborhood in San Francisco, California. It is one of San Francisco's 44 hills, and one of its original "Seven Hills."-Location:...
, Coit Tower
Coit Tower
Coit Tower is a tower in the Telegraph Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, California. The tower, in the city's Pioneer Park, was built in 1933 at the request of Lillie Hitchcock Coit to beautify the city of San Francisco; Coit bequeathed one-third of her estate to the city "to be expended in an...
.
In 1907 and 08, the city was rocked by graft investigations and trials involving bribery of the Board of Supervisors from so-called public service corporations that put mayor Eugene Schmitz
Eugene Schmitz
Eugene Edward Schmitz was an American politician and the 26th mayor of San Francisco, who became notorious for his conviction by a jury on charges of corruption.-Life and career:...
and Abe Ruef
Abe Ruef
Abraham Rueff , known as Abe Ruef, was an American lawyer and politician...
in jail.
"Greater San Francisco" movement of 1912
In 1912, there was a movement to create a Greater San Francisco in which southern Marin County, the part of Alameda County which includes OaklandOakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
, Piedmont
Piedmont, California
Piedmont is a small, affluent city in Alameda County, California, United States. It is surrounded by the city of Oakland. The population was 10,667 at the 2010 census. Piedmont was incorporated in 1907 and was developed significantly in the 1920s and 1930s...
and Berkeley
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
, and northern San Mateo County from San Bruno
San Bruno, California
San Bruno is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States. The population was 41,114 at the 2010 census.The city is adjacent to San Francisco International Airport and Golden Gate National Cemetery.-Geography:San Bruno is located at...
northwards would have become outer Borough
Borough
A borough is an administrative division in various countries. In principle, the term borough designates a self-governing township although, in practice, official use of the term varies widely....
s of San Francisco, with the City and County of San Francisco functioning as Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
, based on the New York City
Borough (New York City)
New York City, one of the largest cities in the world, is composed of five boroughs. Each borough now has the same boundaries as the county it is in. County governments were dissolved when the city consolidated in 1898, along with all city, town, and village governments within each county...
model. East Bay
East Bay (San Francisco Bay Area)
The East Bay is a commonly used, informal term for the lands on the eastern side of the San Francisco Bay, in the San Francisco Bay Area, in California, United States...
opposition defeated the San Francisco expansion plan in the California legislature, and later attempts at San Francisco Bay Area metropolitan area consolidation in 1917, 1923, and 1928 also failed to be implemented.
Panama-Pacific Exposition of 1915
Panama Canal
The Panama Canal is a ship canal in Panama that joins the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and is a key conduit for international maritime trade. Built from 1904 to 1914, the canal has seen annual traffic rise from about 1,000 ships early on to 14,702 vessels measuring a total of 309.6...
, but also as a showcase of the vibrant completely rebuilt city less than a decade after the Earthquake. After the exposition ended, all of its grand buildings were demolished except for the rebuilt Palace of Fine Arts
Palace of Fine Arts
The Palace of Fine Arts in the Marina District of San Francisco, California, is a monumental structure originally constructed for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in order to exhibit works of art presented there. One of only a few surviving structures from the Exposition, it is the only one still...
which survives today in an abbreviated form, while the remainder of the fairgrounds were re-developed into the Marina District.
1930s-World War II
The San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge was opened in 1936 and the Golden Gate Bridge
Golden Gate Bridge
The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening of the San Francisco Bay into the Pacific Ocean. As part of both U.S. Route 101 and California State Route 1, the structure links the city of San Francisco, on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula, to...
in 1937. The 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition
Golden Gate International Exposition
The Golden Gate International Exposition , held at San Francisco, California's Treasure Island, was a World's Fair that celebrated, among other things, the city's two newly-built bridges. The San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge was dedicated in 1936 and the Golden Gate Bridge was dedicated in 1937...
was held on Treasure Island
Treasure Island
Treasure Island is an adventure novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, narrating a tale of "pirates and buried gold". First published as a book on May 23, 1883, it was originally serialized in the children's magazine Young Folks between 1881–82 under the title Treasure Island; or, the...
. It was in this period that the island of Alcatraz
Alcatraz Island
Alcatraz Island is an island located in the San Francisco Bay, offshore from San Francisco, California, United States. Often referred to as "The Rock" or simply "Traz", the small island was developed with facilities for a lighthouse, a military fortification, a military prison, and a Federal...
, a former military
Military
A military is an organization authorized by its greater society to use lethal force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats. The military may have additional functions of use to its greater society, such as advancing a political agenda e.g...
stockade, began its service as a federal maximum security prison, housing notorious inmates such as Al Capone
Al Capone
Alphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone was an American gangster who led a Prohibition-era crime syndicate. The Chicago Outfit, which subsequently became known as the "Capones", was dedicated to smuggling and bootlegging liquor, and other illegal activities such as prostitution, in Chicago from the early...
, and Robert Franklin Stroud, The Birdman of Alcatraz.
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, San Francisco was the major mainland supply point and port of embarkation for the war in the Pacific. It also saw the largest and oldest enclave of Japanese outside of Japan, Japantown, completely empty out many of its residents as a result of Executive Order 9066
Executive Order 9066
United States Executive Order 9066 was a United States presidential executive order signed and issued during World War II by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942 authorizing the Secretary of War to prescribe certain areas as military zones...
that forced all Japanese of birth or decent in the United States to be interned
Japanese American internment
Japanese-American internment was the relocation and internment by the United States government in 1942 of approximately 110,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese who lived along the Pacific coast of the United States to camps called "War Relocation Camps," in the wake of Imperial Japan's attack on...
. By 1943 many large sections of the neighborhood remained vacant due to the forced internment. The void was quickly filled by thousands of African Americans who had left the South to find wartime industrial jobs in California as part of the Great Migration
Great Migration (African American)
The Great Migration was the movement of 6 million blacks out of the Southern United States to the Northeast, Midwest, and West from 1910 to 1970. Some historians differentiate between a Great Migration , numbering about 1.6 million migrants, and a Second Great Migration , in which 5 million or more...
. Many African Americans also settled in the Fillmore District and most notably near the Bayview-Hunters Point shipyards, working in the dry-docks there. The same docks at Hunters Point would be used for loading the key fissile components of the first atomic bomb onto the USS Indianapolis
USS Indianapolis (CA-35)
USS Indianapolis was a of the United States Navy. She holds a place in history due to the circumstances of her sinking, which led to the greatest single loss of life at sea in the history of the U.S. Navy...
in July 1945 for transfer to Tinian
Tinian
Tinian is one of the three principal islands of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.-Geography:Tinian is about 5 miles southwest of its sister island, Saipan, from which it is separated by the Saipan Channel. It has a land area of 39 sq.mi....
.
The War Memorial Opera House
War Memorial Opera House (San Francisco)
The War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco, California is located on the western side of Van Ness Avenue across from the rear facade of City Hall. It is part of the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center...
which opened in 1932, was the site of some significant post World War II history. In 1945, the conference that formed the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
was held there, with the UN Charter being signed nearby in the Herbst Theatre
Herbst Theatre
The Herbst Theatre is an auditorium in the War Memorial and Performing Arts Center in Civic Center in San Francisco, United States. The 928-seat hall hosts programs as diverse as City Arts & Lectures, SF Jazz, and San Francisco Performances....
on June 26. Additionally the Treaty of San Francisco
Treaty of San Francisco
The Treaty of Peace with Japan , between Japan and part of the Allied Powers, was officially signed by 48 nations on September 8, 1951, at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco, California...
which formally ended war with Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
and established peaceful relations, was drafted and signed here six years later in 1951.
Post-World War II
Population density
Population density is a measurement of population per unit area or unit volume. It is frequently applied to living organisms, and particularly to humans...
meant that virtually any right-of-way would displace a large number of people. Caltrans tried to minimize displacement (and its land acquisition costs) by building double-decker freeways, but the crude state of civil engineering
Civil engineering
Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including works like roads, bridges, canals, dams, and buildings...
at that time resulted in construction of some embarrassingly ugly freeways which ultimately turned out to be seismically unsafe. In 1959, the Board of Supervisors voted to halt construction of any more freeways in the city, an event known as the Freeway Revolt. Although some minor modifications have been allowed to the ends of existing freeways, the city's anti-freeway policy has remained in place ever since.
1958 saw the New York Giants move to San Francisco to become the San Francisco Giants
San Francisco Giants
The San Francisco Giants are a Major League Baseball team based in San Francisco, California, playing in the National League West Division....
, with their first stadium, Candlestick Park constructed in 1959.
Urban renewal
In the 1950s San Francisco mayor George Christopher hired Harvard graduate Justin HermanJustin Herman
Justin Herman was an American screenwriter, film producer and director. He wrote for 42 films between 1934 and 1952. He was nominated for an Academy Award in 1950 for Roller Derby Girl and again in 1956 for Three Kisses...
to head the redevelopment agency for the city and county. Justin Herman began an aggressive campaign to tear down so-called blighted areas of the city that were really working class, non-white neighborhoods. Enacting eminent domain
Eminent domain
Eminent domain , compulsory purchase , resumption/compulsory acquisition , or expropriation is an action of the state to seize a citizen's private property, expropriate property, or seize a citizen's rights in property with due monetary compensation, but without the owner's consent...
whenever necessary, he set upon a plan to tear down huge areas of the city and replace them with modern construction. Critics accused Herman of racism for what was perceived as attempts to create segregation and displacement of blacks. Many black residents were forced to move from their homes near the Fillmore jazz district to newly constructed projects such as the near the naval base Hunter's Point or even to cities such as Oakland
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
. He began leveling entire areas in San Francisco's Western Addition and Japantown
Japantown
is a common name for official Japanese communities in big cities outside Japan. Alternatively, a Japantown may be called J-town, Little Tokyo, or Nihonmachi , the first two being common names for the Japanese communities in San Francisco and Los Angeles, respectively.-North America:Japantowns were...
neighborhoods. Herman also completed the final removal of the produce district below Telegraph Hill
Telegraph Hill
Telegraph Hill may be:* Telegraph Hill, San Francisco, California, USA* Telegraph Hill, on the A38 road in Devon, England* Telegraph Hill, Claygate, Surrey, England* Telegraph Hill, Barnet, London, England* Telegraph Hill, Lewisham, London, England...
, moving the produce merchants to the Alemany boulevard site. His planning led to the creation of Embarcadero Center
Embarcadero Center
Embarcadero Center is a commercial complex of five office towers and two hotels on a site located off the Embarcadero in the financial district of San Francisco, California. The Trammell Crow, David Rockefeller and John Portman development was begun with Tower One in 1971, with the last...
, the Embarcadero Freeway, Japantown, the Geary Street superblocks, and eventually Yerba Buena Gardens
Yerba Buena Gardens
Yerba Buena Gardens is the name for two blocks of public parks located between Third and Fourth, Mission and Folsom Streets in downtown San Francisco, California. The first block bordered by Mission and Howard Streets was opened in 1993. The second block, between Howard and Folsom Streets was...
.
Summer of Love and Counterculture Movement.
Following World War II, San Francisco became a magnet for America's countercultureCounterculture
Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...
. During the 1950s, City Lights Bookstore
City Lights Bookstore
City Lights is an independent bookstore-publisher combination that specializes in world literature, the arts, and progressive politics. It also houses the nonprofit City Lights Foundation, which publishes selected titles related to San Francisco culture. It was founded in 1953 by poet Lawrence...
in the North Beach neighborhood was an important publisher of Beat Generation
Beat generation
The Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...
literature. Some of the story of the evolving arts scene of the 1950s is told in the article San Francisco Renaissance
San Francisco Renaissance
The term San Francisco Renaissance is used as a global designation for a range of poetic activity centered on San Francisco and which brought it to prominence as a hub of the American poetic avant-garde. However, others The term San Francisco Renaissance is used as a global designation for a range...
. During the latter half of the following decade, the 1960s, San Francisco was the center of hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
and other alternative culture.
In 1967, thousands of young people entered the Haight-Ashbury district during what became known as the Summer of Love
Summer of Love
The Summer of Love was a social phenomenon that occurred during the summer of 1967, when as many as 100,000 people converged on the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco, creating a cultural and political rebellion...
. The San Francisco Sound
San Francisco Sound
The San Francisco Sound refers to rock music performed live and recorded by San Francisco-based rock groups of the mid 1960s to early 1970s. It was associated with the counterculture community in San Francisco during these years.- Stylistic Dimensions :...
emerged as an influential force in rock music
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
, with such acts as Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band formed in San Francisco in 1965. A pioneer of the psychedelic rock movement, Jefferson Airplane was the first band from the San Francisco scene to achieve mainstream commercial and critical success....
and the Grateful Dead
Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long...
achieving international prominence. These groups blurred the boundaries between folk, rock and jazz traditions and further developed rock's lyrical content.
The rise of the "Gay Mecca".
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
s and gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
s who were more radical and less mainstream and who had flocked to San Francisco not only for its gay-friendly reputation, but for its reputation as a radical, left-wing center. These new residents were the prime movers of Gay Liberation
Gay Liberation
Gay liberation is the name used to describe the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender movement of the late 1960s and early to mid 1970s in North America, Western Europe, and Australia and New Zealand...
and often lived communally, buying decrepit Victorians
Victorian house
In the United Kingdom, and former British colonies, a Victorian house generally means any house built during the reign of Queen Victoria...
in the Haight and fixing them up. When drugs and violence began to become a serious problem in the Haight, many lesbians and gays simply moved "over the hill" to the Castro replacing Irish-Americans who had moved to the more affluent and culturally homogeneous suburbs. The Castro became known as a Gay Mecca, and its gay population swelled as significant numbers of gay people moved to San Francisco in the 1970s and 1980s. The growth of the gay population caused tensions with some of the established ethnic groups in the southern part of the city. On November 27, 1978 Dan White
Dan White
Daniel James "Dan" White was a San Francisco supervisor who assassinated San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, on Monday, November 27, 1978, at City Hall...
, a former member of the Board of Supervisors and former police officer, assassinated
Moscone-Milk assassinations
The Moscone–Milk assassinations were the killings of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, who were shot and killed in San Francisco City Hall by former Supervisor Dan White on November 27, 1978...
the city's mayor George Moscone
George Moscone
George Richard Moscone was an American attorney and Democratic politician. He was the 37th mayor of San Francisco, California, US from January 1976 until his assassination in November 1978. Moscone served in the California State Senate from 1967 until becoming Mayor. In the Senate, he served as...
and San Francisco's first openly gay elected official, Supervisor Harvey Milk
Harvey Milk
Harvey Bernard Milk was an American politician who became the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors...
. The murders and the subsequent trial were marked both by candlelight vigils and riots within the gay community. In the 1980s, the HIV (formerly called LAV, HTLV-III, also known as AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
virus) created havoc on the gay male community. Today, the gay, lesbian, and bisexual populations of the city are estimated to be approximately 15%, and they remain influential in the city's life.
During the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s San Francisco became a major focal point in the North American—and international-- punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
, thrash metal
Thrash metal
Thrash metal is a subgenre of heavy metal that is characterized usually by its fast tempo and aggression. Songs of the genre typically use fast percussive and low-register guitar riffs, overlaid with shredding-style lead work...
, and rave
Rave
Rave, rave dance, and rave party are parties that originated mostly from acid house parties, which featured fast-paced electronic music and light shows. At these parties people dance and socialize to dance music played by disc jockeys and occasionally live performers...
scenes.
The 1970s also brought other major changes to the city such as the construction of its first subway system, BART, which connects San Francisco with other cities in the Bay Area in 1972. At stations in downtown San Francisco, BART connects with MUNI, the city subway, which has lines that run underground along Market Street, and then along surface streets through much of the city. .San Francisco's tallest building, the Transamerica Pyramid
Transamerica Pyramid
The Transamerica Pyramid is the tallest skyscraper in the San Francisco skyline and one of its most iconic. Although the building no longer houses the headquarters of the Transamerica Corporation, it is still strongly associated with the company and is depicted in the company's logo...
was also completed during that year. San Francisco also saw a wave of violence during this time such as the Zebra Killings, the Zodiac Murders
Zodiac Killer
The Zodiac Killer was a serial killer who operated in Northern California in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The killer's identity remains unknown. The Zodiac murdered victims in Benicia, Vallejo, Lake Berryessa and San Francisco between December 1968 and October 1969. Four men and three women...
, and the Golden Dragon massacre
Golden Dragon massacre
The Golden Dragon massacre took place in San Francisco, California, on September 4, 1977, inside the Golden Dragon Restaurant. At 2:40 AM a longstanding feud between two rival Chinese gangs, the Joe Boys and Wah Ching came to head when a botched assassination attempt by the Joe Boys at the Golden...
.
1980s
Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein is the senior U.S. Senator from California. A member of the Democratic Party, she has served in the Senate since 1992. She also served as 38th Mayor of San Francisco from 1978 to 1988....
(1978–1988), San Francisco saw a development boom referred to as "Manhattanization
Manhattanization
Manhattanization is a neologism coined to describe the construction of many tall or densely situated buildings which transforms the appearance and character of a city. It was a pejorative word used by critics of the highrise buildings built in San Francisco during the 1960s and 1970s, who claimed...
." Many large skyscrapers were built — primarily in the Financial District — but the boom also included high-rise condominiums in some residential neighborhoods. An opposition movement gained traction among those who felt the skyscrapers ruined views and destroyed San Francisco's unique character. Similar to the freeway revolt in the city decades earlier, a "skyscraper revolt" forced the city to embed height restrictions in the planning code. For many years, the limits slowed construction of new skyscrapers. She had also spearheaded the development and construction of the city's convention center, the Moscone Center
Moscone Center
Moscone Center is the largest convention and exhibition complex in San Francisco, California. It comprises three main halls: Two underground halls underneath Yerba Buena Gardens, known as Moscone North and Moscone South, and a three-level Moscone West exhibition hall across 4th Street...
, preserved and renovated the city's Cable Cars, and attracted the 1984 Democratic National Convention
1984 Democratic National Convention
The 1984 National Convention of the U.S. Democratic Party was held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California from July 16 to July 19, 1984, to select a candidate for the 1984 United States presidential election. At the convention Walter Mondale was nominated for President and Geraldine...
.
During the early 1980s, homeless people began appearing in large numbers in the city, the result of multiple factors including the closing of state institutions for the mentally ill, the Reagan administration
Reagan Administration
The United States presidency of Ronald Reagan, also known as the Reagan administration, was a Republican administration headed by Ronald Reagan from January 20, 1981, to January 20, 1989....
drastically cutting Section 8
Section 8 (housing)
Section 8 of the United States Housing Act of 1937 , as repeatedly amended, authorizes the payment of rental housing assistance to private landlords on behalf of approximately 3.1 million low-income households...
housing benefits, and social changes which increased the availability of addictive drugs
Drug abuse
Substance abuse, also known as drug abuse, refers to a maladaptive pattern of use of a substance that is not considered dependent. The term "drug abuse" does not exclude dependency, but is otherwise used in a similar manner in nonmedical contexts...
. Combined with San Francisco's attractive environment and generous welfare policies the problem soon became endemic. Mayor Art Agnos (1988–92) was the first to attack the problem, and not the last; it is a top issue for San Franciscans even today. Agnos allowed the homeless to camp in the Civic Center park, which led to its title of "Camp Agnos." The failure of this policy led to his losing the election to Frank Jordan
Frank Jordan
Francis M. “Frank” Jordan is a U.S. politician, foundation executive and former Chief of Police.Jordan was born in San Francisco in 1935 and graduated from Sacred Heart High School in 1953...
in 1991. Jordan launched the "MATRIX" program the next year, which aimed to displace the homeless through aggressive police action. And it did displace them - to the rest of the city. His successor, Willie Lewis Brown, Jr., was able to largely ignore the problem, riding on the strong economy into a second term. Present mayor Gavin Newsom
Gavin Newsom
Gavin Christopher Newsom is an American politician who is the 49th and current Lieutenant Governor of California. Previously, he was the 42nd Mayor of San Francisco, and was elected in 2003 to succeed Willie Brown, becoming San Francisco's youngest mayor in 100 years. Newsom was re-elected in 2007...
's policy on the homeless is the controversial "Care Not Cash" program, which calls for ending the city's generous welfare policies towards the homeless and instead placing them in affordable housing and requiring them to attend city funded drug rehabilitation
Drug rehabilitation
Drug rehabilitation is a term for the processes of medical or psychotherapeutic treatment, for dependency on psychoactive substances such as alcohol, prescription drugs, and so-called street drugs such as cocaine, heroin or amphetamines...
and job training programs.
In August 1989, San Francisco was surpassed for the first time in population by San Jose
San Jose, California
San Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...
(located in silicon valley
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...
), the world center of the computer industry
Computer industry
Computer industry is a collective term used to describe the whole range of businesses involved in developing computer software, designing computer hardware and computer networking infrastructures, the manufacture of computer components and the provision of information technology services.-See...
. San Jose has continued since then to grow in population since it is surrounded by large tracts of developable land
Real estate development
Real estate development, or Property Development, is a multifaceted business, encompassing activities that range from the renovation and re-lease of existing buildings to the purchase of raw land and the sale of improved land or parcels to others...
. Thus, San Francisco is now the second largest city in population in the San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
after San Jose.
1989 Loma Prieta earthquake
On October 17, 1989, an earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter magnitude scaleRichter magnitude scale
The expression Richter magnitude scale refers to a number of ways to assign a single number to quantify the energy contained in an earthquake....
struck on the San Andreas Fault
San Andreas Fault
The San Andreas Fault is a continental strike-slip fault that runs a length of roughly through California in the United States. The fault's motion is right-lateral strike-slip...
near Loma Prieta Peak in the Santa Cruz mountains, approximately 70 miles (113 km) south of San Francisco, a few minutes before Game 3 of the 1989 World Series
1989 World Series
†: Game 3 was originally slated for October 17 at 5:35 pm; however, it was postponed when an earthquake occurred at 5:04 pm.-Game 1:Saturday, October 14, 1989 at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum in Oakland, California...
was scheduled to begin at Candlestick Park. The quake severely damaged many of the city's freeways including the Embarcadero Freeway and the Central Freeway
Central Freeway
The Central Freeway is a roughly one-mile elevated freeway in San Francisco, California, United States, connecting the Bayshore/James Lick Freeway with the Hayes Valley neighborhood. Most of the freeway is part of US 101, which exits at Mission Street on the way to the Golden Gate Bridge...
. The quake also caused extensive damage in the Marina District and the South of Market neighborhoods. Despite the significant destruction the earthquake had caused throughout the greater Bay Area, only 67 died. The World Series resumed a week later with the loss of the Giants to the Oakland A's.
1990s
The 1990s saw the demolition of the quake damaged Embarcadero and Central Freeway, restoring the once blighted Hayes Valley and the restoration of its waterfront promenade, The Embarcadero. In 1994 as part of the Base Realignment and ClosureBase Realignment and Closure
Base Realignment and Closure is a process of the United States federal government directed at the administration and operation of the Armed Forces, used by the United States Department of Defense and Congress to close excess military installations and realign the total asset inventory to reduce...
plan, the former military bases of San Francisco Naval Shipyard
San Francisco Naval Shipyard
The San Francisco Naval Shipyard was a United States Navy shipyard in San Francisco, California, located on of waterfront at Hunters Point in the southeast corner of the city...
in Bayview-Hunters Point was closed and returned to the city while the Presidio was turned over to the National Park Service and since converted a into national park.
In 1996, the city elected its first and to date only African American mayor, former Speaker of the California State Assembly, Willie Brown
Willie Brown (politician)
Willie Lewis Brown, Jr. is an American politician of the Democratic Party. He served over 30 years in the California State Assembly, spending 15 years as its Speaker, and afterward served as the 41st mayor of San Francisco, the first African American to do so...
. Brown called for expansions to the San Francisco budget to provide for new employees and programs. During Brown's tenure, San Francisco’s budget increased to US$5.2 billion and the city added 4,000 new employees. His tenure saw the development and construction of the new Mission Bay neighborhood, and baseball stadium for the Giants, AT&T Park
AT&T Park
AT&T Park is a ballpark located in the South Beach neighborhood of San Francisco, California. Located at 24 Willie Mays Plaza, at the corner of Third and King Streets, it has served as the home of the San Francisco Giants of Major League Baseball since 2000....
which was 100% privately financed.
Dot-com Boom
During the dot-com boomDot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble was a speculative bubble covering roughly 1995–2000 during which stock markets in industrialized nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the more...
of the late 1990s, large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer software professionals moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals, and changed the social landscape as once poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. The rising rents forced many people, families, and businesses to leave. San Francisco has the smallest share of children of any major U.S. city, with the city's 18 and under population at just 14.5 percent. http://news.sfobserver.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=8351949ee6ac559b5939f034bd28f1ef
2000s
In 2001, the markets crashed, the boom ended, and many left San Francisco. South of Market, where many dot-com companies were located, had been bustling and crowded with few vacancies, but by 2002 was a virtual wasteland of empty offices and for-rent signs. Much of the boom was blamed for the city's "fastest shrinking population", reducing the city's population by 30,000 in just a few years. While the bust has helped put an ease on the city's apartment rents, the city remains expensive. By 2003, the city's economy had recovered from the dot-com crash thanks to a resurgent international tourist industry and the Web 2.0 boomWeb 2.0
The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web...
that saw the creation of many new internet and software start-up companies in the city, attracting white-collar workers to recent University graduate young adults from all over the world. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/06/22/MNG6HJIDMM1.DTL http://www.sfgov.org/site/uploadedfiles/moed/economic_strat/ExecutiveSummary_EconomicPerformanceReview.pdf Residential demand as well as rents rose again, and as a result of such demand, city officials relaxed building height restrictions and zoning codes to construct residential condominiums in SOMA
South of Market, San Francisco, California
South of Market is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California, United States.-Name and location:Its boundaries are Market Street to the northwest, San Francisco Bay to the northeast, Mission Creek to the southeast, and Division Street, 13th Street and U.S. Route 101 to the southwest...
such as One Rincon Hill
One Rincon Hill
One Rincon Hill is a residential complex on the apex of Rincon Hill in San Francisco, California, United States. The complex, designed by Solomon, Cordwell, Buenz and Associates and developed by Urban West Associates, consists of two skyscrapers that share a common townhouse podium. One tower, One...
, 300 Spear Street, and Millennium Tower, although the late 2000s recession has indefinitely halted many construction projects such as Rincon Hill. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/07/BA6Q1A1V5H.DTL Part of this development is the reconstruction of the Transbay Terminal
San Francisco Transbay Terminal
San Francisco Transbay Transit Terminal, or simply Transbay Terminal, was a transportation complex in San Francisco, California, USA, located roughly in the center of the rectangle bounded north–south by Mission Street and Howard Street, and east–west by Beale Street and 2nd Street...
Replacement Project
San Francisco Transbay development
The San Francisco Transbay development plan consists of three supertall skyscrapers and ten other skyscrapers and highrises proposed in San Francisco. The towers are proposed to fund the replacement of the San Francisco Transbay Terminal in the South of Market neighborhood near the Financial...
.
2010 also saw the San Francisco Giants win their first World Series title since moving from New York City. The estimated 1 million people that attended their victory parade is considered one of the largest in city history. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/11/04/MNM51G6DMS.DTL
Historic populations
- 1852 - 34,776
- 1860 - 56,802
- 1870 - 149,473
- 1880 - 233,959
- 1890 - 298,997
- 1900 - 342,782
- 1910 - 416,912
- 1920 - 506,676
- 1930 - 634,394
- 1940 - 634,536
- 1950 - 775,357
- 1960 - 740,316
- 1970 - 715,674
- 1980 - 678,974
- 1990 - 723,959
- 2000 - 776,733
- 2010 - 805,235
See also
- 101 California Street101 California Street101 California Street is a 48-story office building completed in 1982 in the Financial District of San Francisco, California. The tower providing of office space is bounded by California-, Davis-, Front-, and Pine Streets near Market Street....
- History of the west coast of North AmericaHistory of the west coast of North AmericaThe human history of the west coast of North America is believed to stretch back to the arrival of the earliest people over the Bering Strait, or alternately along a now-submerged coastal plain, through the development of significant pre-Columbian cultures and population densities, to the arrival...
- Redstone (building)
Surveys
- Sinclair, Mick. San Francisco: A Cultural and Literary History (2003)
- Solnit, Rebecca. Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas (University of California Press, 2010). 144 pp. ISBN 978-0-520-26250-8; online review
- Starr, Kevin. Americans and the California Dream, 1850-1915 (1973); Starr's multivolume history of the state has extensive coverage of the city's politics, culture and economy
Earthquake, infrastructure & environment
- Dreyfus, Philip J. Our Better Nature: Environment and the Making of San Francisco (2009)
Ethnicity & Race
- Broussard, Albert S. Black San Francisco: The Struggle for Racial Equality in the West, 1900-1954 (1994)
- Burchell, R. A. The San Francisco Irish, 1848-1880 (1980)
- Chen, Yong. Chinese San Francisco, 1850-1943: A Trans-Pacific Community (2002)
- Garibaldi, Rayna, and Bernadette C. Hooper. Catholics of San Francisco (2008)
- Rosenbaum, Fred. Cosmopolitans: A Social and Cultural History of the Jews of the San Francisco Bay Area (2011)
- Yung, Judy. Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco (1995)
Gold Rush & early days
- Hittell, John S. A history of the city of San Francisco and incidentally of the State of California (1878), 498pp; famous classic online edition
- Richards, Rand. Mud, Blood, and Gold: San Francisco in 1849 (2008)
Politics
- Bean, Walton. Boss Rueff's San Francisco: The Story of the Union Labor Party, Big Business, and the Graft Prosecution (1967)
- Carlsson, Chris, and LisaRuth Elliott. Ten Years That Shook the City: San Francisco 1968-1978 (2011)
- Davies, Andrea Rees. Saving San Francisco: Relief and Recovery after the 1906 Disaster (2011)
- DeLeon, Richard E. Left Coast City: Progressive Politics in San Francisco, 1975-1991 (1992)
- Ethington, Philip J. The Public City: The Political Construction of Urban Life in San Francisco, 1850-1900 (2001)
- Kazin, Michael. Barons of Labor: The San Francisco Building Trades and Union Power in the Progressive Era (1988)
Social
- Lotchin, Roger W. The Bad City in the Good War: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Oakland, and San Diego (2003)
External links
- History of Yerba Buena's Renaming, from San Francisco History Podcast
- San Francisco History Index
- Website with many historic photos and documents of San Francisco history
- Shaping San Francisco, the lost history of San Francisco
- Found SF wiki project
- Historic Pictures of 19th Century San Francisco, from the Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum
- Historic San Francisco photographs, including the 1906 Earthquake and Fire, by JB Monaco, a local photographer during that period
- Videos of San Francisco from the Prelinger Collection at archive.org
- Videos of San Francisco from the Shaping San Francisco collection at archive.org
- A Map and Timeline of many of the events mentioned in this article
- San Francisco Then and Now - extensive slideshow by Life magazine
- Across From City Hall video on the "Camp Agnos" era at Civic Center Plaza