San Francisco history

12 Apr 2025

Why You Should Know About the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot

By James Conrad In the early 1960s, residents of San Francisco were not tolerant of homosexual and transgender people like most are today. The LGBTQ+ community tried settling in North Beach and South of Market. Targeted redevelopment and police harassment subsequently pushed them from these neighborhoods and into the adjacent

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28 Aug 2024

How SF’s Democratic Political Machine Led to Kamala Harris’ Presidential Campaign

California Democratic Congressman Phil Burton, second from right, with – left to right – Democratic State Assemblymen Leo T. McCarthy, Willie L. Brown and Art Agnos, in the early 1980s. San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library by Lincoln Mitchell This article originally appeared on The Conversation.  The political

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11 May 2023

SF History: Sex WORK In The City

COYOTE (Call Off Your Tired Old Ethics) was founded in San Francisco in 1973 by Margo St. James, a sex worker, who also co-founded St. James Infirmary Clinic in the Tenderloin. COYOTE’s main goals were decriminalization (as opposed to legalization) of sex work, pimping, and pandering, as well as the elimination of social stigma concerning sex work as an occupation. Its work is considered part of the larger sex worker movement for legal and human rights.

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16 Mar 2023

Where The Bodies Are Buried: San Francisco’s Former Cemeteries

It has been over 100 years since anyone was buried in San Francisco. In 1902, it became illegal to bury new bodies in the city, and by 1921, bodies were being moved to new land in Colma. By 1941 nearly all the cemeteries were gone, and largely forgotten.

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05 Dec 2022

A Glimpse at an Unrecognizable San Francisco During the Gold Rush

Let’s take it back to San Francisco during the California Gold Rush of 1848. The discovery of gold marked a turning point for the Bay Area, ushering in a new era of industrialization. This was of course, at the expense of the native Ohlone people, who had been suffering enslavement

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07 Nov 2022

10 Fun Facts About San Francisco You May Not Know

You think you know a lot about San Francisco? Well let’s see how many of these fun facts you already had stored in your noggin. You’re about to be so much better at SF trivia. 1. Alcatraz was the only federal prison to offer hot-water showers, supposedly to dissuade prisoners

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19 Sep 2022

The Real & Imagined History of Mario’s Bohemian Cigar Store Cafe

There are no cigars there. Not anymore, at Mario’s Bohemian Cigar Cafe Store. North Beach, that righteous, riotous and literarily relevant San Francisco neighborhood of great charm has long become a tourist destination. Arguably, it is now a neighborhood primarily cultivated and sustained through tourism. It’s where all the sailors

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19 Aug 2022

The Bay Area’s Lost Statue Of Liberty

I was snooping around old newspaper clippings the other day, looking to see what San Francisco was like 100 years ago, and found a super interesting article. Did you know that Treasure Island (Yerba Buena) almost had its own 700-foot Statue of Liberty?! The local paper, San Francisco CALL, reports

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