Timeline of San Francisco

The following is a timeline of the history of the city of San Francisco, California, United States.

Prior to the 1800s

• 1776 – Presidio of San Francisco and Mission San Francisco de Asís established by colonists from Spain.
• 1791 – Mission San Francisco de Asís building dedicated.

1800s

• 1833
• Mexican Secularization Act of 1833: Mission Dolores begins process of shutting down, San Francisco opened up to civilian settlement.
• 1834
• The pueblo of Yerba Buena founded, Francisco de Haro becomes first alcalde.
• 1847
• Yerba Buena renamed "San Francisco."
• The City Hotel built by William Leidesdorff.
• 1848
• Territory ceded from Mexico to the United States per Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
• California Gold Rush begins.
• 1849
• July 15: Little Chile attacked by The Hounds gang.
• St. Francis hotel built.
• Boudin Bakery, Olympic Amphitheatre, and Union Iron Works in business.
• West Indian Benevolent Association established.
• 1850
• April 15: City of San Francisco incorporated.
• May 1: John W. Geary becomes mayor.
• October 29: San Francisco becomes part of the new U.S. State of California.
• Chamber of Commerce Society of California Pioneers, and Jenny Lind Theatre established.
• Population: 34,000.
• 1851
• May 3–4: Fire.
• San Francisco Committee of Vigilance organized.
• Pioneer Race Course opens.
• 1852
• Ghirardelli in business.
• Mercantile Library Association of San Francisco, Sons of the Emerald Isle, and San Francisco Turn Verein established.
• The Golden Era newspaper begins publication.
• 1853 – California Academy of Sciences, YMCA, and Russ garden established.
• 1854
• San Francisco Mechanics' Institute established.
• Lone Mountain Cemetery established
• 1855 – Hebrew Young Men's Literary Assoc. active.
• 1856 – Mirror of the Times and Daily Morning Call newspapers begin publication.
• 1857 – California State Convention of Colored Citizens, a colored convention, held in city.
• 1858 – Italian Benevolent Society organized.
• 1859 – San Francisco Schuetzen-Verein founded.
• 1860
• March 27: Japanese embassy arrives.
• Olympic Club founded.
• Population: 56,802.
• 1861
• Overland Telegraph Company begins operating (New York-San Francisco).
• Fraternitas Rosae Crucis lodge established.
• 1862
• Heald's Business College and Franchise League established.
• The San Francisco Stock and Bond Exchange was founded.
• 1863
• San Francisco and San Jose Railroad begins operating soon.
• St. Andrew's Society founded.
• Cliff House rebuilt.
• Charlotte L. Brown sues a racially segregated San Francisco streetcar company and wins.
• 1864 –
• Concordia-Argonaut Club founded.
• Hugh Toland found the Toland Medical College, which would later become the University of California, San Francisco
• 1865 – Daily Examiner and Daily Dramatic Chronicle newspapers begin publication.
• 1866 – Merchants' Exchange Association, Caledonian Club, and Woodward's Gardens established.
• 1867
• Street begging ban effected.
• San Francisco City and County Almshouse opens.
• 1868 – San Francisco County Medical Society and Women's Co-operative Printing Office https://books.google.com/books?id=ZiQkCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA71 established.
• 1869
• California Theatre opens.
• San Francisco Yacht Club founded.
• Grand hotel built.
• Central Pacific Railroad line to Oakland completed.
• 1870
• Golden Gate Park and San Francisco Microscopical Society established.
• Population: 149,473.
• 1871 – San Francisco Art Association and St. Luke's Hospital established.
• 1872 – Bohemian Club and Bar Association of San Francisco founded.
• 1873
• Clay Street Hill Railroad begins operating.
• Polish Society of California organized.
• 1874 – California School of Design, and Territorial Pioneers of California established.
• 1875
• Palace Hotel in business.
• Fire patrol established.
• 1876
• Pioneer Park, Pacific Homeopathic Dispensary Association, and Ligue Nationale Francaise established.
• Railway connexion to Los Angeles.
• 1877
• Board of Trade, Spanish Mutual Benevolent Society, and Workingmen's Party of California established.
• Anti-Chinese sentiment leads to riots against Chinatown residents and businesses.
• Baldwin hotel built.
• 1878 – San Francisco Public Library, Pacific Yacht Club, and Young Women's Christian Association founded.
• 1879 – Golden Gate Kindergarten Association organized.
• 1880 – California State Convention of Colored Citizens, a colored convention, held in city.
• 1881 – Geographical Society of the Pacific organized.
• 1883 – Pacific Coast Amateur Photographic Association headquartered in city.
• 1887 – Cogswell Polytechnical College established.
• 1888 – Associated Charities and San Francisco Business College established.
• 1889 – Pacific-Union Club formed.
• 1890
• California Camera Club and University Club of San Francisco established.
• Population: 298,997.
• Grand Conservatory of Music is established by Eugene S. Bonelli
• 1891 – Gregg Shorthand school established.
• 1892
• Hibernia Bank built.
• Trocadero Hotel opens.
• 1893 – Mark Hopkins Institute of Art established.
• 1894
• Wilmerding School of Industrial Arts established.
• California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894 held; Japanese Tea Garden built.
• 1895
• California School of Mechanical Arts established.
• M. H. de Young Memorial Museum opens as Golden Gate Park Museum.
• 1896 – Sutro Baths open.
• 1898
• San Francisco Ferry Building opens.
• City rechartered.
• League of California Municipalities headquartered in city.
• Buddhist temple founded.
• 1899
• San Francisco State Normal School established.
• City Hall built.
• 1900 – Population: 342,782.

1900s

1900s–1940s

• 1901
• Labor strike of restaurant workers.
• San Francisco Architectural Club organized.
• 1902 – Eugene Schmitz becomes mayor.
• 1905 – 1908: San Francisco graft trials
• 1906 – April 18: Earthquake and fires.
• 1907
• July: Mayor Eugene Schmitz imprisoned.
• International Hotel built.
• A. Mutt comic strip begins publication in the San Francisco Chronicle.
• 1908 – South San Francisco incorporated near city.
• 1910
• San Francisco Housing Association organized.
• Population: 416,912.
• 1911
• Cort Theatre opens on September 2, 1911.
• San Francisco Symphony founded. Plays first concert at Cort Theatre on December 8, 1911.
• 1912
• Lux School for Industrial Training for Girls opens.
• Book Club of California established.
• James Rolph becomes mayor.
• Tadich Grill in business.
• 1914 – San Francisco National Guard Armory and Arsenal built.
• 1915
• January 25: First transcontinental telephone call occurs (San Francisco-New York).
• February 20: Panama–Pacific International Exposition opens; Tower of Jewels built.
• San Francisco Labor Temple built.
• San Francisco City Hall rebuilt.
• Veterans Auditorium opens.
• 1916
• Preparedness Day Bombing.
• Legal Aid Society established.
• Buena Vista Cafe in business.
• 1917 – Strand Theater built.
• 1922 – Golden Gate Theatre, and Castro Theatre built.
• 1923
• January: Mae Nolan becomes U.S. representative for California's 5th congressional district.
• August 2: US President Harding dies in the Palace Hotel.
• 1924
• California Palace of the Legion of Honor opens.
• April 24, opening of the Metropolitan Theatre in Cow Hollow
• 1925
• Fleishhacker Pool built.
• Florence Prag Kahn becomes U.S. representative for California's 4th congressional district.
• 1926 – Playland at the Beach in business.
• 1927 – San Francisco Municipal Airport dedicated.
• 1928 – Amazon Theater opens.
• 1929
• Fleishhacker Zoo established.
• Topsy's Roost (restaurant) in business.
• 1930 – Pacific Stock Exchange Lunch Club formed.
• 1931
• Stern Grove opens as city park.
• El Rey Theatre opens
• 1932
• War Memorial Opera House opens.
• Photographers' Group f/64 founded.
• 1933
• San Francisco Opera Ballet founded.
• Coit Tower built.
• 1934
• May 9: General Strike begins.
• U.S. Penitentiary established on Alcatraz Island.
• Golden Grain Macaroni Company in business.
• 1935 – San Francisco Museum of Modern Art opens as San Francisco Museum of Art in Veterans Memorial Building.
• 1936 – Bay Bridge opens.
• 1937 – May 27: Golden Gate Bridge opens.
• 1940 – Holly Courts housing project built.
• 1944 – Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples established.
• 1945
• Tonga Room in business.
• April 25: United Nations Conference on International Organization begins.
• June 26: United Nations Charter signed.
• 1946 – National Urban League branch and Marines' Memorial Club established.
• 1949 – Presidio Theatre built.

1950s–1990s

• 1952 – The Purple Onion nightclub in business.
• 1953 – City Lights Bookstore in business.
• 1955 – City Lights Pocket Poets Series begins publication.
• Allen Ginsberg reads his poem Howl for the first time at the Six Gallery
• 1957
• San Francisco International Film Festival founded.
• Caffe Trieste in business.
• Sister city relationship established with Osaka, Japan.
• The San Francisco Stock and Bond Exchange (formed in 1882) and the Los Angeles Oil Exchange (formed in 1899) merge to create the Pacific Coast Stock Exchange.
• 1959 – Embarcadero Freeway opens.
• 1960 – Mandarin restaurant in business.
• 1963– The Reverend Cecil Williams becomes pastor at Glide Memorial Church, shifting the church's politics to the left.
• 1964 – City's "San Francisco History Center" established.http://sfpl.org/index.php?pg=2000734801https://web.archive.org/web/20150907123849/http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Report-chastises-S-F-over-preservation-of-its-6488560.php?t=3d6a790bd400af33be&cmpid=twitter-premium
• 1965 – Intersection for the Arts incorporated.
• The musical group the Jefferson Airplane is created.
• 1966– The Compton's Cafeteria riot breaks out when transgender patrons become angry over police harassment.
• 1967 – Summer of Love.
• January: The Human Be-In takes place in Golden Gate park, a prelude to the Summer of Love.
• The anarchist group The Diggers is founded, and begins distributing free food.
• 1968 – Sister city relationship established with Sydney, Australia.
• The Church of John Coltrane is established, and continues religious services until 2016.
• 1969
• 555 California Street built.
• Sister city relationships established with Assisi, Italy; and Taipei, Taiwan.
• The San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner receive their first letters from The Zodiac Killer.
• 1970 – Regional Metropolitan Transportation Commission established.
• 1971 – Peoples Temple in San Francisco and Church of the Tree of Life established.
• 1972
• San Francisco Pride begins.
• Golden Gate National Recreation Area established.
• Transamerica Pyramid built.
• 1973
• October: Zebra murders begin.
• Church of the Gentle Brothers and Sisters incorporated.
• Sister city relationship established with Haifa, Israel.
• 1974
• People's Food System active (approximate date).
• Southern Exposure (art space) and San Francisco Cable Car Museum established.
• April 15: Hibernia Bank robbery by the Symbionese Liberation Army.
• 1975
• Rainbow Grocery Cooperative opens.
• Sister city relationship established with Seoul, South Korea.
• September 22: Sara Jane Moore attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford in front of the St. Francis Hotel by firing two gunshots at Ford; both shots missed.
• 1976 – Bay Area Video Coalition founded.
• 1977
• Theatre Rhinoceros and Suicide Club founded.
• Golden Dragon massacre
• San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association active.
• 1978
• June 25: Rainbow flag (LGBT movement) introduced.
• November 18: Jonestown mass murder-suicide at the People's Temple Guyana compound.
• November 27: Moscone–Milk assassinations.
• December 4: Dianne Feinstein becomes mayor.
• 1979
• The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence make their first appearance on Castro Street.
• May 21: White Night riots.
• Sister city relationship established with Shanghai, China.
• 1980 – Davies Symphony Hall opens.
• 1981
• San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra and Hansberry Theatre established.
• Sister city relationship established with Manila, Philippines.
• 1982 – City/county handgun ban approved; later struck down by state court.
• 1983
• San Francisco General Hospital AIDS clinic established.
• The first San Francisco Historic Trolley Festival takes place.
• 1984 – Sister city relationship established with Cork, Ireland.
• 1986
• Cacophony Society formed.
• A bonfire of a wooden man is held on Baker Beach which evolves into the Burning Man event.
• Sister city relationship established with Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.
• 1987 – Luggage Store (arts organization) established.
• 1988 – San Francisco Museum and Historical Society founded.
• 1989
• October 17: Loma Prieta earthquake.
• San Francisco becomes a sanctuary city for illegal immigrants.
• 1990
• Population: 723,959.
• Sister city relationship established with Thessaloniki, Greece.
• 1991 – Museum of the City of San Francisco opens.
• 1992
• Critical Mass (bicycle event) began.
• Clarion Alley Mural Project organized.
• Latino Coalition for a Healthy California headquartered in city.http://www.lchc.org/who-we-are/history/
• 1993
• Yerba Buena Center for the Arts opens.
• 101 California Street shooting occurs.
• 1994 – Santarchy begins.
• 1995
• Craigslist founded.
• Sister city relationship established with Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
• 1996
• City website online (approximate date).
• Willie Brown becomes mayor.
• Internet Archive headquartered in city.
• Long Now Foundation established.
• 1997
• Sister city relationship established with Paris, France.
• Pinecrest Diner, a popular all-night diner-style restaurant in San Francisco, becomes notorious for a murder over an order of eggs.
• 1998 – Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts founded.
• 2000 – Population: 776,733.

2000s

• 2001 - Fatal dog mauling of Diane Whipple.
• 2003
• Bernal Heights Preservation established.
• U.S. National Security Agency/AT&T Room 641A in operation.
• Sister city relationship established with Zürich, Switzerland.
• 2004 – Gavin Newsom becomes mayor.
• 2005 – November: Gun control ordinance San Francisco Proposition H (2005) passes; later struck down.
• 2006 – the Metro Theatre in Cow Hollow closes
• 2007
• Twitter Inc. in business.
• Noisebridge founded.
• 2008
• Edible Schoolyard established at San Francisco Boys and Girls Club.
• One Rincon Hill (apartment building) constructed.
• Airbnb in business.
• 2009
• The Millennium Tower opens, later sinking and tilting.
• Uber begins operating.
• FailCon begins.
• San Francisco Appeal begins publication.
• Sister city relationships established with Bangalore, India; and Kraków, Poland.
• 2010
• The Bay Citizen and Ocean Beach Bulletin begin publication.
• Population: 805,235; metro 4,335,391.
• Sister city relationships established with Amman, Jordan; and Barcelona, Spain.
• 2011
• January 11: Ed Lee becomes mayor.
• November 8: San Francisco mayoral election, 2011.
• TechCrunch Disrupt conference begins.
• 2013
• San Francisco tech bus protests begin.
• Civic Industries in business.
• 2014 – San Francisco Giants baseball team win World Series contest.
• 2015 – Shooting of Kathryn Steinle occurs; a 32-year old woman is killed by a stray bullet fired by an illegal immigrant who was previously deported. The gunman found a gun laying around negligently, and claimed to have fired towards sea lions from a deck, thus hitting a bystander.
• 2020 – Orange Skies Day makes international headlines
• 2023 - Significantly high levels of crime, open-air drug use, homelessness, and closed storefronts have become more prominent features of Union Square.
• 2023 - March: Bob Lee was killed in a stabbing.
• November: San Francisco hosts the 2023 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Summit.
• 2024 - July: Corazon Dandan is fatally shoved onto a Daly City-bound oncoming BART train, allegedly by a homeless mentally ill individual.
• 2024 - September: Shooting and wounding of Ricky Pearsall occurs in Union Square, over a robbery involving his Rolex watch allegedly done by a teenage male from Tracy, California.

See also

• History of San Francisco
• National Register of Historic Places listings in San Francisco, California
• List of pre-statehood mayors of San Francisco
• List of mayors of San Francisco (since 1850)
• of San Francisco's sister cities: Abidjan, Amman, Barcelona, Haifa, Kraków, Manila, Osaka, Paris, Seoul, Shanghai, Sydney, Zürich
• Timeline of the San Francisco Bay Area
• Timelines of other cities in the Northern California area of California: Fresno, Mountain View, Oakland, Sacramento, San Jose

References

Bibliography

Published in the 1800s

• San Francisco (article) (1870) The Overland Monthly, January 1870 Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 9–23. San Francisco: A. Roman & Co., Publishers

Published in the 1900s

1900s–1940s

1950s–1990s

Published in the 2000s

• Solnit, Rebecca. Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas (University of California Press, 2010). 144 pp. 

External links

• Digital Public Library of America. Items related to San Francisco, various dates