Before Europeans arrived, the San Francisco peninsula was home to the Ohlone Indians who lived in small, semi-permanent villages. Explorer Juan Cabrillo claimed the area for Spain in the 1500s, but it was much later that the Spanish began to settle here, establishing a military presidio and mission in 1776.

Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821, and San Francisco became part of the United States in 1848. Shortly afterward, word reached San Francisco that gold had been discovered at Sutter's Mill near Sacramento, and for more than a year, San Francisco's population doubled every ten days as gold-seekers and hangers-on (including aspiring tailor Levi Strauss and confectioner Dominic Ghirardelli) poured in.

San Francisco almost burned to the ground many times during the late nineteenth century, prompting city fathers to adopt the phoenix as the city’s symbol. The devastating firestorm that followed 1906 earthquake destroyed large portions of the city, but San Franciscans are a hardy lot. Most of the city was rebuilt in time to host the 1915 Pan-Pacific Exhibition.

In the mid-twentieth century, San Francisco became a center of counterculture, attracting Beat Generation personalities such as Lawrence Ferlenghetti and giving rise to the beatnik and hippie movements. The Haight-Ashbury neighborhood was the center of the 1967 "Summer of Love."
 

 

 

 

 

 

The Presidio was originally a Spanish Fort sited by Juan Bautista de Anza on March 28, 1776, built by a party led by José Joaquín Moraga later that year. It was seized by the U.S. Military in 1846, officially opened in 1848, and became home to several Army headquarters and units, the last being the United States 6th Army. Several famous U.S. generals, such as William Sherman, George Henry Thomas, and John Pershing, made their homes here. During its long history, the Presidio was involved in most of America's military engagements in the Pacific.

 

The Presidio of San Francisco (originally, El Presidio Real de San Francisco or Royal 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. It has been a fortified location since 1776 when the Spanish made it the military center of their expansion in the area. It passed to Mexico which in turn passed it to the United States in 1847.[4] In 1995, it was closed as a military base, ending 219 years of military use and beginning its next phase of mixed commercial and public use. It is

 

 

 


If you don't Drive Take The Santa Fe to Next Stop!!

 


California State Flower