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."
In the 1990s, San Francisco became the center of a new "gold rush," home of many dot-com companies.
Old Pictures of San Francisco Old Films 1
Old Pictures of San Francisco Old Films 2
