Tag: San Francisco History
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Tudor Revival and Craftsman Style Firehouse
1088 Green Street Russian Hill The SFFD History site says: After the 1906 Earthquake and Fire, Newton J. Tharp was named city architect and was charged with rebuilding city government buildings. He designed this firehouse along with a number of Beaux Arts-style firehouses. Located on top of Russian Hill, this firehouse was designed to conform…
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Underwriters Fire Patrol
147 Natoma SOMA/Financial District According to the History Department of the SFFD: On May 24, 1875, the City’s insurance companies joined together to organize and fund the Underwriters Fire Patrol. The UFP was like a fire department; it had its own firehouses, alarm system and firemen whose only task was salvage practices. The patrol worked…
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Engine Company #13
1458 Valencia Street Mission Built in 1883, this is the City’s oldest standing firehouse. In the heart of the Mission District, this rare brick firehouse in the Victorian Italianate style has a front surface made entirely of cast iron detail. Such buildings are very rare in San Francisco with most clustered in the Jackson Square…
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Alemany Emergency Hospital
35 Onandaga Avenue at Alemany Mission Terrace / Outer Mission This beautiful building was once the Alemany Emergency Hospital. There were no other emergency rooms other than San Francisco General Hospital before 1966, therefore the County was responsible for all emergency care and all emergency ambulance transport. Emergency care was provided throughout San Francisco…
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Old Chamber of Commerce Building
333 Pine Street Financial District / Downtown ** From Men Who Made San Francisco 1912 There is not much left to say about McDougall other than he was educated at the California School of Design. As stated, his work covered a wide range of building types, including churches, schools, apartment houses, commercial buildings, hotels, and private…
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William Alexander Leidesdorff
One Leidesdorff Financial District The plaque outside this building celebrates the architect, leaving one to assume that that is who this person is. However, this is William Alexander Leidesdorff Jr. Leidesdorff was born to a Dane and a Creole in the Virgin Islands in 1812. Legally recognized by his Danish father, Leidesdorff came under the…
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The First School of California
Portsmouth Square Chinatown This marks the site of the first public school in California. Erected in 1847 Opened April 3, 1848 This commemorative marker was erected in 1957 by the grand lodge of free and accepted masons of the state of California California Historical Landmark 587. The following contemporary account of the little schoolhouse in…
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Thomas Starr King
Franklin between Starr King and Geary Japantown/Western Addition/ Fillmore Due to the lack of land their are very few bodies actually buried within the City of San Francisco. This is why the Sarcophogus of Thomas Starr King is so unusual. Thomas Starr King, a young, inexperienced Unitarian minister, came to San Francisco in 1860 when…
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St Markus Kirche
St Marks Cathedral 1111 O’Farrell Street Fillmore/Japantown/Western Addition Germans starting flocking to the San Francisco Bay area during the gold rush of 1849 . The dedication of the present church building in 1895 marked three decades of effort by German immigrants to establish Lutheranism in California. Rev. Frederick Mooshake from Goettingen University arrived in 1849 to…
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Mission Dolores Mosaic
Mission Dolores 16th and Dolores The Mission District This mural is in the hallway between the Mission and the Basilica. The brass plaque that accompanies it reads: Guillermo Granizo 1923-1996 This ceramic mural is the work of Guillermo Granizo a native San Francisco Artist. Shortly after Guillermo’s birth in 1923 the Granizo Family moved to…
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Fort Gunnybags
Sacramento and Front Streets Financial District The San Francisco Committee of Vigilance was a popular ad hoc organization formed in 1851 and revived in 1856 in response to rampant crime and corruption in the municipal government of San Francisco. It was one of the most successful organizations in the vigilante tradition of the American Old West. *** From Found SF May…
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Systematic Saving is the Key to Success
1 Montgomery Street Financial District This pressed copper decorative marquee graces the side entrance to the First National Bank, now Wells Fargo. There are two figures, one on each side of the marquee that stand and serve as supports. Cornucopias are placed at their feet. A nude male and female figure recline on either side of…
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Sarah B. Cooper Brings the West its First Kindergarten
Golden Gate Park Near the Sharon Art Center This memorial to Sarah B. Cooper was placed in the park by the Golden Gate Kindergarten Association in 1923. This area sits on the other side of the carousel from the Koret Childrens Playground. Sarah Cooper was instrumental in the Kindergarten Movement of San Francisco. Here, from…
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Carl G. Larsen. Chickens to Jet Fighters
Larsen Park 19th Avenue at Ulloa Sunset District This plaque can be found on the corner of 19th Avenue and Ulloa. The plaque was done by M. Earl Cummings in 1913 of Carl G. Larsen. Cummings has appeared prominently in this website for the many sculptures he has done around town. “In the late 1800s, many…
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The Masonic Temple – 25 Van Ness
Masonic Temple 25 Van Ness Civic Center Walter Danforth Bliss and William Baker Faville were the architects of this, the second Masonic Lodge in San Francisco. The first lodge, at 1 Montgomery Street, was built in 1860 and burned down in the 1906 fire. In 1911 the Masonic Temple Association, headed by William Crocker, laid a…
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Utility Boxes get Dressed Up
Duboce and Church Castro Mona Caron, who created the adjacent Bicycle Coalition mural on the back of the Safeway has added new touches to the Muni utility boxes on the sidewalk. On one side of the boxes, bicyclists entering the Wiggle are greeted by an illustrated flowing banner that lists the names of the streets that make…
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Art at the Richmond District Library
351 9th Avenue SF Public Library Inner Richmond * According to Scott Donahue’s website “these sculptures were designed to integrate into the very symmetrical renovate library landscape and building. Each dome is a relief sculpture map. On is the entire Bay Area and portrays a time in history from 15000 years ago to 100 years…
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Liberty Bell of Mission Dolores Park
Mission Dolores Park The Mission * * The plaque reads: Mexico’s Liberty Bell (A…
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Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower
Telegraph Hill Coit Tower To understand Coit Tower you must first understand Lillie Hitchcock Coit. A nice tale is told here from the Virtual San Francisco History Museum written by: By Frederick J. Bowlen, Battalion Chief, San Francisco Fire Department. One of the most unusual personalities ever connected with our Fire Department was a woman. She was Lillie…
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S.F. Bicycle Coalition Mural
Castro/Duboce Avenue/Nob Hill Back of 2020 Market Street In 1972 BART built the Market Street subway, including Muni Metro. Along the Duboce Avenue tunnel entrance was a single eastbound lane for cars. During the 1994 closure of the street, for construction, The Bicycle Coalition worked to show that this street, which when used by…
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The Eastern Outfitting Company
1017 Market Street Mid-Market This gorgeous building sits on Market between 6th and 7th. It has been sheathed and scaffolded for quite awhile now, and it is a pleasure to see that it has come out from behind its blanket much better for the stay. The seven story building, with its terra-cotta finish and steel…
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The Faces of 50 UN Plaza
50 UN Plaza City Center The Federal Building of San Francisco was vacated by the US Government in 2007 when they built a newer building in Civic Center. It has recently undergone a $121 million restoration and will be the offices of Section 9 GSA. This article is about the exterior of the building. In 1927, the…
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The 1852 Shoreline
162 King Street South Beach Here is a map of San Francisco prior to 1852. In this map Townsend is the western-most street on the waterfront, one block northwest of King Street. Thanks to Found SF and the Oakland Museum, you can see what the area looks like today: If you are interested in more information…
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Rammaytush
These plaques run along the south side of King Street, between the Caltrain station and AT&T Park. There are 104 of them embedded in the sidewalk. On them are engraved all of the known words of a language called Rammaytush. The Rammaytush language is one of the eight Ohlone languages, historically spoken by the…