local history

A collection of 70 posts

Paid-members only

Grab Bag

Grab Bag #50

Apartments in a park, baseball in a pasture, parents in a nightclub, and one goat.

Russian Hill

Living Off the Grid

San Francisco's 1840s Laguna Survey gave the city some growing pains

Ocean Beach

Going Out

Life Saving at San Francisco's Ocean Beach

Silver Terrace

Selling Silver Terrace

Photographer Eadweard Muybridge had a job to do in southeast San Francisco in 1869.

Paid-members only

Grab Bag

Grab Bag #48

Woody goes artifact-hunting in San Francisco's past.

Jackson Square

International Settlement

The exotic restaurant row that was the last gasp of San Francisco's Barbary Coast.

Stern Grove

Trocadero Rebirth

San Francisco's last roadhouse is resurrected in Stern Grove.

Paid-members only

Grab Bag

Grab Bag #47

Portsmouth Square in the 1850s, old photos found, and memorializing motherhood.

Western Addition

Moved by Faith

The 1850s San Francisco church that kept moving west.

Panhandle

Wheelmen’s Panhandle Palace

The 1890s rise and quick fall of the Velodrome bicycling track next to Golden Gate Park.

Paid-members only

Grab Bag

Grab Bag #46

San Francisco history grab bag with kissing, blessings, dancing, and star-gazing.

Sunnyside

Mudslide on Foerster

Rainy Februaries bring thoughts of a dark day on San Francisco's Mount Davidson.

Yerba Buena Island

Torpedo Point

An explosive point of interest tucked under the eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

Rincon Hill

The Unkindest Cut

The 1860s Rincon Hill project that put the cut in San Francisco's East Cut neighborhood.

Richmond District

Carzonia Apartments

Cable-car-house living in the Richmond District after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire.

Paid-members only

Grab Bag

Grab Bag #44

Sunset District

Making 19th Avenue

The highway through San Francisco's Sunset District started as a rutted country road.

Paid-members only

Grab Bag

Grab Bag #43

Emporium roof rides, the Human Jukebox, and Dianne Feinstein: a classic San Francisco Grab Bag, right?

Downtown

The Monkey Block

How San Francisco's Montgomery Block, built in 1853, survived every disaster, but lost to one man.

Golden Gate Park

Ponies of the Past

The horsy history of the Polo Fields in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.

Mission District

Sunshine School

How the Rotary Club introduced special education into the San Francisco school district 100 years ago.

Paid-members only

Grab Bag

Grab Bag #41

World Series parade, gas stations, and Great Highway history—a San Francisco grab bag.

Ingleside

Ingleside Flight

Real and would-be aviators in San Francisco's Ingleside neighborhood in the early 1910s.

Downtown

Telenews Theatre

San Francisco had an all-news theater from 1939 to 1967. Admission gave you the whole world and a quiet retreat from the same.

Paid-members only

Grab Bag

Grab Bag #40

Exploding cannons, secret water tanks, and funeral pick-pockets from ye olde San Francisco.