History of San Francisco, California

The history of San Francisco, California, has been greatly influenced by its coastal location, which has made it a natural center for maritime trade and military activity. Since its incorporation into the United States, where it is now the fourteenth largest city (2004 census), it has been characterized by rapid economic change and cultural diversity.

Precolonial history

European visitors to the Bay Area were preceded 10,000 to 20,000 years earlier by Native Americans. When Europeans arrived, they found the area inhabited by the Yelamu tribe, which belongs to a linguistic grouping later called the Ohlone, living in the coastal and bay areas between Big Sur and the San Francisco Bay.

San Francisco's characteristic foggy weather and geography led early European explorers, including Juan Cabrillo and Sir Francis Drake (who would instead land somewhere to the north), to bypass the Golden Gate and miss sighting San Francisco Bay.

Arrival of Europeans and early settlement

A Spanish exploration party, led by Don Gaspar de Portolà, arriving on November 2, 1769, was the first documented European visit to San Francisco Bay, claiming it for Spain as part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain.cite web |title=Visitors: San Francisco Historical Information |url=http://www.sfgov.org/site/visitor_index.asp?id=8091 | accessmonthday=September 3 |accessyear=2006 |publisher=City and County of San Francisco ] Seven years later a Spanish mission, Mission San Francisco de Asís (Mission Dolores), was established with a small settlement, and an associated military fort was built in what is now the Presidio.cite book |last=De La Perouse |authorlink=Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse |first=Jean Francois |coauthors=Yamane, Linda Gonsalves; Margolin, Malcolm |title=Life in a California Mission: Monterey in 1786 : The Journals of Jean Francois De La Perouse |id=ISBN 0-930588-39-8 ] [For the Revillagigedo Census of 1790, see [http://sfgenealogy.com/spanish/cen1790.htm The Census of 1790, California] , California Spanish Genealogy. Retrieved on 2008-08-04. Compiled from William Marvin Mason. "The Census of 1790: A Demographic History of California". (Menlo Park: Ballena Press, 1998). 75-105. ISBN 9780879191375.]

In 1786 French explorer, the Comte de la Pérouse visited San Francisco and left a detailed account of it. [De La Perouse, "Life in a California Mission".] 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. [ [http://www.nps.gov/prsf/coast_defense/spanish/vancouver/vancouvr.htm Vancouver's Report] Presidio of San Francisco, National Park Service.] In addition to Western European sailors, Russian colonists also visited the Bay area. From 1770, lasting through 1841, Russia 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,cite web |title=From the 1820s to the Gold Rush |url=http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist1/early.html | accessmonthday=August 28 |accessyear=2006 |publisher=The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco ] near a boat anchorage around what is today Portsmouth Square. Together with Mission 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. [cite book |author=Porter, Andrew|title=The Oxford History of the British Empire Volume III: The Ninenteenth Century|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1999|id=ISBN 0-19-820565-1]

On July 31 1846, Yerba Buena doubled in population when about 240 Mormon migrants from the East coast arrived on the ship "Brooklyn", led by Sam Brannan. Brannan, also a member of the Mormon Church, 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. [ [http://www.yerbabuenagardens.com/history.html History of Yerba Buena Gardens.] Yerba Buena Gardens. Accessed August 28, 2003] 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 nineteenth 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

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 outstripped any efforts at city planning - and left a legacy of narrow streets that continues to cause unique 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. [cite web |title=U.S. Census POPULATION OF THE 100 LARGEST CITIES AND OTHER URBAN PLACES IN THE UNITED STATES: 1790 TO 1990 |url=http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027.html |accessdate=April 20 |accessyear=2006 ]

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; 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, but also had a strong element of anti-immigrant violence, and arguably created more lawlessness than they eliminated.Dubious|date=September 2008 This popular militia movement lynched 12 people, kidnapped hundreds of Irishmen and government militia members, and forced several elected officials to resign.Fact|date=September 2008 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.Fact|date=September 2008 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.Dubious|date=September 2008 The law was not repealed until 1943.

The City of San Francisco was the seat of the County of San Francisco from 1849 to 1856. 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 the 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 metropolitan municipality.

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.

Labor

For labor history of San Francisco, see: History of California to 1899 and History of California 1900 to present

Paris of the West

By the 1890s, 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." When the San Francisco Art Association asked him to draft a plan for the beautification of the city, he hired famed architect Daniel Burnham. Burnham and Phelan's plan was ambitious, envisioning a 50-year effort to transform the city with wide diagonal boulevards creating open spaces and squares as they crossed the orthogonal grid of existing streets. Some parts of the plan were eventually implemented, including an Opera house to the north of City Hall, a subway under Market Street, and a waterfront boulevard (The Embarcadero) circling the city. [cite book |author=Wiley, Peter Booth |title=National Trust Guide San Francisco |publisher=John Wiley & Sons, Inc. |year=2000 |id=ISBN 0-471-19120-5]

. [cite web |title=San Francisco Cemeteries |url=http://www.sanfranciscocemeteries.com |accessdate=July 12 |accessyear=2005 ]

1906 Earthquake and Fire

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.

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 Burnham. 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 atheneum at its peak, and various other proposals. This plan was dissimissed 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 realise such proposals. While the original street grid was restored, many of Burnham's proposals inadvertently 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.

[
Palace of Fine Arts is the only building that remains from the Panama-Pacific Exposition]

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 Palace of Fine Arts which survives today in an abbreviated form.

After rebuilding

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.

During World War II, San Francisco was the major mainland supply point and port of embarkation for the war in the Pacific.

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.

Period after World War II

After World War II, many American military personnel who fell in love with the city during leaving to or returning from the Pacific, settled in the city prompting the creation of the Sunset District and Visitacion Valley. 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. In 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake destroyed the Embarcadero Freeway and portions of the so-called Central Freeway. Over the course of several referendums, San Francisco's residents elected not to rebuild either structure. The neighborhoods once covered by these freeways have been rebuilt, and the restoration of the Embarcadero, San Francisco's historic bay waterfront, as a public space has been especially successful.

Urban renewal

In the 1950s San Francisco mayor George Christopher hired Harvard graduate Justin Herman 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

Counterculture

San Francisco has often been a magnet for America's counterculture. 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 poured into the Haight-Ashbury district during what became known as the Summer of Love. At this time, 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.

During the 1980s and 1990s San Francisco became a major focal point in the North American--and international-- punk, thrash metal, and rave scenes. In 2004, the city hosted its first Love Parade, which originated in Berlin, Germany, ten years earlier. It was also a hot spot during the 1980s for comedians like Ellen DeGeneres and Robin Williams who got major career boosts thanks to the presence of the city's popular comedy clubs.

San Francisco's frontier spirit and wild and ribald character started its reputation as a gay mecca in the first half of the twentieth 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 9000 gay servicemen and women were discharged, and many were processed out in San Francisco. [cite book |author=Berube, Allan |title=Coming Out Under Fire The History of Gay Men and Women in World War Two |publisher=Free Press |year=1990 |id=ISBN 0-7432-1071-9] The late 1960s also brought in a new wave of lesbians and gays 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 homogenous 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 western 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 AIDS virus wreaked havoc on the gay male community there. Today, the gay population of the city is estimated to be approximately 15%, and gays remain an important force in the city's life. San Francisco has a higher percentage of gays and lesbians than any other major US city.

1980s: "Manhattanization" and Homelessness

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, but recent (2000-2007) housing pressures have led to master plan changes which will allow new construction of high-rise structures like One Rincon Hill along The Embarcadero, Rincon Hill and in the South of Market district. This second wave of towers has met little opposition unlike the first wave. For more information see List of tallest buildings in San Francisco.

During the 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, 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.

1989 Loma Prieta earthquake

On October 17, 1989, an earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter magnitude scale 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. The quake severely damaged many of the city's freeways including the Embarcadero Freeway and the Central Freeway. The damage to these freeways was so extensive that they were eventually demolished. The quake also caused extensive damage in the Marina District and the South of Market. Known in most of the United States as the "World Series Quake," but in California and by seismologists as the Loma Prieta earthquake, it caused significant destruction throughout the greater Bay Area, yet is to blame for only 67 deaths.

1990s dot-com boom

During the dot-com boom of the 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 city's 18 and under population at just 14.5 percent. [http://news.sfobserver.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=8351949ee6ac559b5939f034bd28f1ef]

By 2001, the boom was over, and many people 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.

Post boom

By 2003, the city's economy had recovered from the dot-com crash thanks to a resurgent international tourist industry. Residential demand as well as rents are on the rise again and as a result of such demand, city officials have relaxed building height restrictions and zoning codes to allow another wave of Manhattanization in the city in the form of very tall residential condominiums in SOMA such as One Rincon Hill, 300 Spear Street, and Millennium Tower. In addition to this, a major transformation of the neighborhood is planned with the Transbay Terminal Replacement Project, which if funded, is planned to be open by 2013 along with what will be the tallest skyscraper on the West Coast with a cluster of other supertall skyscrapers next to it. [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/08/12/MN6SRGFIU.DTL ] .

Historic Populations

*1852-34,776 [1850 census was lost in fire. This is the figure for 1852 California Census.]
*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 [1940 Census. Population Report. Vol. 1. p. 32-33]

See also

* 101 California shooting
* History of the west coast of North America
* Redstone (building)

Notes

External links

* [http://www.zpub.com/sf/history/ San Francisco History Index]
* [http://www.americahurrah.com/ Website with many historic photos and documents of San Francisco history]
* [http://www.shapingsf.org/ Shaping San Francisco, the lost history of San Francisco]
* [http://sanfrancisco.cityviews.us/ Historic Pictures of 19th Century San Francisco] , from the Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum
* [http://www.jbmonaco.com/ Historic San Francisco photographs, including the 1906 Earthquake and Fire] , by JB Monaco, a local photographer during that period
* [http://www.archive.org/movies/movieslisting-browse.php?collection=prelinger&cat=San%20Francisco Videos of San Francisco from the Prelinger Collection at archive.org]
* [http://www.archive.org/movies/movieslisting-browse.php?collection=shaping_sf Videos of San Francisco from the Shaping San Francisco collection at archive.org]
* [http://www.timespacemap.com/search/eventsearch.htm?_what=san_francisco&_zoom=11&_ll=37.764201%2C%2D122.433014&_maptype=0 A Map and Timeline] of many of the events mentioned in this article.