San Francisco

2 days ago - San Franciscans built schools, churches, theaters, and all the hallmarks of civic life. The Presidio developed into the most important American military installation on the Pacific coast. In 1890, San Francisco's population approached 300,000, making it the eighth-largest city in the United ...

1 week ago - 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.

An expedition led by Gaspar de ... and putting Franciscan monks in their place, arrived in the bay in 1770 where they founded San Francisco. In 1776 the Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza built the San Francisco prison ...

Lewis, Oscar, San Francisco, Mission to Metropolis, Howell-North Books, Berkeley, 1966. Charles Wollenberg, Perspectives in Bay Area History, UC Berkeley Press, 1984. ... The Spanish colonial model was based primarily on the establishment of missions and presidios. The mission was the basic colonial unit: it settled the lands, carried out the conversion of the natives and maintained law and order. The presidios, built only at strategic locations (there were three in California: at San Diego (1769), Monterey (1770) and San Francisco (1776)) were responsible for the military protection of the lands (chiefly the missions) and ensured the enforcement of laws and the punishment of recalcitrant Indians.

The Founding of San Francisco, by Edward F. O’Day · Founding of the Mission Dolores

July 14, 2022 - Why is San Francisco where it is? How was it settled? What was it like in its early years? We take a look at the founding of San Francisco.

July 3, 2022 - Established in 1776, San Francisco is one of America's oldest cities, though things didn't really get started until the Gold Rush in 1849. Here's everything you need to know.

In 1849 San Francisco had approximately 1,000 inhabitants; by 1856 the population had soared to 50,000. Such meteoric growth had never quite been seen before in the 19th century. Visitors, as well as residents, were often amazed that such a significant city, the largest of the west coast, could ...

In the 1920s, San Francisco was quite dapper. Multiple iconic landmarks were built such as the Golden Gate Theatre, Castro Theatre, and Fleishhacker Pool. In 1933, the Bay Bridge was opened, and merely four years later, the Golden Gate Bridge—the ...

The founding of San Francisco took place in 1776 when Spanish colonists established a presidio and a mission at the site, marking the beginning of European settlement in the region. This founding is closely tied to the broader colonization process in California, which involved establishing ...

328 LONG WHARF - In the spring of 1848, the old Central or Long Wharf was built 'from the bank in the middle of the block between Sacramento and Clay Streets, where Leidesdorff Street now is, 800 feet into the Bay.'

San Francisco is one of the most densely populated cities in America. The city was founded on June 29, 1776 when a fort was built by what would become th

April 17, 2020 - June 25, 1835: For decades there wasn’t much else around except for the Presidio and the Mission, and it took until 1835 for someone to create the first independent residential homestead in what would one day become San Francisco.

June 22, 2024 - San Francisco (Spanish for Saint Francis) was founded on June 29, 1776, when settlers from New Spain established the Presidio of San Francisco at the Golden Gate and the Mission San Francisco de Asís named for St.

San Francisco, the ancestral homeland of the Ramaytush Ohlone people, was founded in 1776 as a presidio and mission during Spanish occupation. By the time of the Mexican–American War in 1846, around one thousand people, mostly sailors, fishermen, whalers, and fur trappers, lived in the city.

Six years later, in 1792, British explorer George Vancouver also stopped in San Francisco. Russian fur traders also visited the area. The neighborhood Russian Hill is named after Russian traders and sailors whose remains were found there. After Mexico became independent from Spain in 1821, the area became part of Mexico. In 1835, an Englishman named William A. Richardson built the first important home outside the Mission Dolores area.

Father Junipero Serra was assigned to provide a portion of its housing. He was successful in finding a suitable area for a new complex and named it Misión San Francisco de Asís. The area is now called Mission Dolores. Nearly 75 years after the fort was built, the United States seized control of the area in 1846.

May 28, 2025 - Perched atop hills and filled-in marshland at the entrance to one of the Pacific’s largest natural harbors, San Francisco has had an outsized influence on the history of California and the United States. Originally a Spanish (later Mexican) mission and pueblo, it was conquered by the United States in 1846 and by an invading army of prospectors following the 1848 discovery of gold in its hinterland.

February 4, 2025 - Much later, in 1769 Gaspar de Portola led a Spanish expedition overland and he found the bay. Then in 1776 Juan de Anza led a group of settlers to San Francisco Bay and they built a fort called a presidio.

In the 1960s, the Junior League surveyed and researched thousands of San Francisco’s historic buildings, many of them featured in the book, Here Today: San Francisco Architectural Heritage. If a building was surveyed, the research file notes when it was built, and perhaps, the original owner ...