Neptune's Needle

City (1990 pop. 723,959; 2000 pop. 776,733), coextensive with and (cap.) San Francisco co., W Calif., on the N end of a peninsula bet. the Pacific Ocean (W) and San Francisco Bay (E), separated from Marin Peninsula (Marin co.) by Golden Gate Strait, 6 miles W of downtown Oakland; 37º48'N 122º33'W. The city is the heart of the San Francisco Bay region and with Oakland and San Jose comprise the 4th-largest metropolitan area in the U.S. Mfg. (printing and publishing, food processing, mining services, apparel, textile processing, petroleum refining, computers, chemicals, communications equip., machinery).

Tourism is the economic mainstay, with service industries supporting the large number of annual visitors. For most of its history, San Francisco has been the financial center of the West Coast, but since the early 1970s the city has had to compete with Los Angeles for this distinction. Finance remains one of the most important activities; the city is still hq. to 3 of the country’s largest commercial banks as well as a Federal Reserve bank and the Pacific Stock Exchange. More than 600 insurance companies are based here. San Francisco is also the marketplace for a large agr. and mining region and the focus of many transportation routes. Along with the busy port of Richmond across the bay to NE, and Oakland Harbor (San Leandro Bay) to E, San Francisco and the Bay Area form one of the largest ports on the West Coast and are a major center of trade with East Asia, Australia, S. Amer., Mexico, Canada, Hawaii, and Alaska. Although mfg. in San Francisco has declined, the clothing and food-processing industries remain important. Tourism is also very important. The city was founded in 1776, when a Span. presidio and a mission were established at a location chosen by Juan Bautista de Anza. The little settlement called Yerba Buena was still a village when the Mex.-Amer. War broke out and a naval force under Commodore John D. Sloat took it (1846) in the name of the U.S. It was then renamed San Francisco. When gold was discovered in Calif. in 1848, San Francisco had a pop. of c.800; 2 years later it was inc. (1850) with a pop. of c.25,000. The rush of gold seekers, adventurers, and settlers brought a period of lawlessness, when the Barbary Coast wharf dist. flourished. The city took on a cosmopolitan air, with newcomers arriving from all over the world. In this period the 1st Chinese settled in the city, and San Francisco’s legendary Chinatown is among the largest communities of Chinese in the U.S.

In the years after the gold rush, San Francisco continued to grow as Calif. became linked overland with the East, by the pony express in 1860 and by the transcontinental RR in 1869. On the morning of April 18, 1906, the great San Andreas fault, which extends up and down the Calif. coast, at this point lying submerged just W of the city’s Pacific coast, shifted violently, and San Francisco was shaken by an earthquake which, together with the sweeping 3-day fire that followed, all but destroyed the city. Earthquakes have since continued to plague the city and its environs; in Oct. 1989, a severe earthquake hit the Bay Area, wreaking most damage on Oakland, the Bay Bridge, and local highways.

The opening of the Panama Canal, a boon to the city’s trade, was celebrated by the Panama-Pacific Exposition of 1915. The city was connected to Oakland (E) by the San Francisco/Oakland Bay Bridge in 1936 (Interstate 80), and to Marin co. (N) by the spectacular Golden Gate Bridge (U.S. Highway 101) in 1937. By the time of the Golden Gate Internatl. Exposition (1939-1940) the whole Bay Area was heavily industrialized; it had become the leading commercial center of the West Coast. During World War II, San Francisco was the major mainland supply point and port of embarkation for the war in the Pacific. The city is renowned for its all-encompassing fogs; soaring bridges; the Cliff House and Palace of the Legion of Honors art mus. on Point Lobos, overlooking the Pacific and offshore rocks.

Sources

Compiler

Peter Richards