DK Travel : San Francisco : History & Culture

Page
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Mission Dolores

The 18th-century Spanish mission, site of the area’s earliest settlement, is worth a visit for its tranquility, as well as for the education it provides about the city’s early history (see Mission Dolores).
Mrs Doubtfire

Native San Franciscan Robin Williams is in drag in this 1993 spoof. Golden Gate Park is shown to full effect.
Mrs. Madrigal

Olympia Dukakis brought this wonderful Tales of the City character to vibrant life in the mini-series based on Armistead Maupin’s books. Anna Madrigal is a transsexual landlady who rents out apartments to young singles, both gay and straight, and tends to her marijuana plants and her charges with equal wisdom and spirituality.
Native Americans

There were settlements in the Bay as early as the 11th century BC, made up of hunters and gatherers who enjoyed a rich diet of seeds, shellfish, and game. Historians group these peoples into the Coast Miwok, the Wintun, and the Ohlone.
Native Americans’ Near-Extinction

In the late 1800s Native Americans were hunted down by settlers, with a bounty paid for each scalp.
Nob Hill

Erstwhile site of the mansions of Golden Age moguls and potentates, from these lofty heights now rise the city’s most lavish hotels and the Gothic spires of one of its best-loved cathedrals.
North Beach

The entire area resonates with the history of the early Italian residents, but even more with the iconoclastic legacy of the revolutionary Beats, who brought the neighborhood worldwide fame. Historic churches stand as clear landmarks, while equally historic saloons and cafés take a little snooping around to find.
Open Secret

The backroom of this New Age venue is like a temple to all the world’s deities.
Owsley Stanley

The most famous source of pure LSD in the 1960s.
Panama-Pacific Exposition

Held in 1915 to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal, the real raison d’être for the festivities was that San Franciscans had resurrected their city after the 1906 disaster (see Crissy Field).