49 Fun Facts About San Francisco

What colour is the Golden Gate Bridge painted?

International Orange was chosen by consulting architect Irving Morrow; the vermilion shade stands out against fog and complements the Marin headlands.

The Golden Gate Bridge opened to the public in which year?

The Golden Gate Bridge opened to pedestrians on 27 May 1937 and to cars the next day; its 4,200-foot main span was then the longest in the world.

Who served as chief engineer of the Golden Gate Bridge?

Joseph Strauss was the Golden Gate Bridge's chief engineer and its leading promoter; Charles Ellis and Leon Moisseiff did much of the detailed structural design under him.

Alcatraz Island served as a federal prison from 1934 until which year?

Alcatraz closed as a federal penitentiary on 21 March 1963 after 29 years; the cold water and strong tides had made escape nearly impossible.

Which famous gangster was held at Alcatraz?

Al Capone arrived at Alcatraz in August 1934 and spent about four and a half years there; Robert 'Birdman' Stroud and 'Machine Gun' Kelly were also inmates.

In 1969, Alcatraz was occupied for over 19 months by protesters from which group?

Native Americans organised as Indians of All Tribes held the island from 20 November 1969 to 11 June 1971, claiming it under the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie.

San Francisco is home to the world's last manually operated version of which transit vehicle?

A gripman on each San Francisco cable car clamps the moving underground cable by hand; of the 23 lines built from 1873, three survive.

The city's first successful cable car line, the Clay Street Hill Railroad, opened in which year?

Andrew Hallidie's Clay Street Hill Railroad made its first run on 2 August 1873; its design became the template for cable systems everywhere.

Lombard Street is famous for a steep block with how many hairpin turns?

Eight switchbacks were built in 1922 to tame Lombard Street's natural 27 percent grade, which was too steep for the cars of the day.

The colourful Victorian houses known as the 'Painted Ladies' stand across from which park?

The Painted Ladies on Steiner Street face Alamo Square, whose hilltop lawn gives the classic view of the Victorians with downtown behind them.

The 1906 San Francisco earthquake had an estimated magnitude of what?

The 1906 quake is estimated at magnitude 7.9; it ruptured about 296 miles of the San Andreas Fault, and the fires that followed destroyed over 80 percent of the city.

The 1989 earthquake that struck during a World Series game is named for which peak?

The Loma Prieta earthquake of 17 October 1989, magnitude 6.9, hit minutes before Game 3 of the Giants-A's World Series at Candlestick Park; it is named for a peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

San Francisco takes its name from which saint?

The city is named for Saint Francis of Assisi; Mission San Francisco de Asís, better known as Mission Dolores, was founded in 1776.

San Francisco was founded by settlers from where in 1776?

Settlers from New Spain on the Anza expedition founded the Presidio at the Golden Gate and Mission Dolores a few miles away in 1776.

The California Gold Rush began in 1848 when gold was found at a sawmill owned by whom?

James W. Marshall spotted it at Sutter's Mill in Coloma on January 24, 1848.

What nickname was given to the gold-seekers who flooded into California during the Gold Rush?

Forty-niners took their name from 1849, the peak year of Gold Rush immigration, when San Francisco grew from a village of about 1,000 people to a boom town of 25,000.

San Francisco's signature bread is which tangy variety?

French bakers brought the technique during the Gold Rush; the 49ers mascot is even called Sourdough Sam.

The Transamerica Pyramid was San Francisco's tallest building from 1972 until which year?

The 48-storey Transamerica Pyramid lost the title in 2017, when the 1,070-foot Salesforce Tower topped out and overtook its 853 feet.

Coit Tower overlooks the bay from which San Francisco neighbourhood?

Coit Tower rises 210 feet atop Telegraph Hill; Lillie Hitchcock Coit's 1929 bequest paid for it, and despite legend it was not designed to resemble a fire-hose nozzle.

The Palace of Fine Arts was built for which 1915 world's fair?

Bernard Maybeck designed the Palace of Fine Arts for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, which celebrated the Panama Canal's opening; its rotunda beside a lagoon was rebuilt in concrete in the 1960s.

The Haight-Ashbury neighbourhood became the centre of which 1960s movement?

Haight-Ashbury became the hub of the hippie counterculture in 1967, when tens of thousands of young people arrived; the Grateful Dead lived at 710 Ashbury Street.

The famous burst of 1960s idealism centred on the Haight is known as what?

The Summer of Love peaked in 1967, when as many as 100,000 young people converged on Haight-Ashbury after January's Human Be-In in Golden Gate Park.

Pier 39 at Fisherman's Wharf is famous for a colony of which animals?

California sea lions began hauling out on Pier 39's marina docks in the winter of 1989-90, soon after that October's earthquake; the herd has peaked at more than 1,700 animals.

One famous San Francisco park covers how many acres, making it larger than New York's Central Park?

The park covers 1,017 acres, about 20 percent more than Central Park's 843, stretching three miles from Stanyan Street to the Pacific.

Which NFL team has represented San Francisco since 1946?

The 49ers, founded in 1946 and named for the Gold Rush prospectors, won five Super Bowls between the 1981 and 1994 seasons; Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara became their home in 2014.

Which quarterback led the 49ers to four of their Super Bowl titles in the 1980s?

Joe Montana quarterbacked the 49ers to wins in Super Bowls XVI, XIX, XXIII and XXIV, covering the 1981 to 1989 seasons; Jerry Rice, Ronnie Lott and coaches Bill Walsh and George Seifert were part of that dynasty.

The San Francisco Giants moved to the city in 1958 from where?

They had been the New York Giants, playing at the Polo Grounds.

The Giants won three World Series in a five-year span in which years?

The Giants won the World Series in 2010, 2012 and 2014 under manager Bruce Bochy, beating the Rangers, Tigers and Royals in turn.

The Golden State Warriors moved to the Bay Area in 1962 from which city?

The Philadelphia Warriors, champions in 1947 and 1956, became the San Francisco Warriors in 1962 and took the name Golden State in 1971.

The boxed pasta dish advertised as 'the San Francisco treat' is called what?

Rice-A-Roni, a rice-and-vermicelli mix launched in 1958 by the DeDomenico family's Golden Grain company in San Francisco, came from an Armenian pilaf recipe shared by immigrant Pailadzo Captanian.

Which sitcom about widowed dad Danny Tanner and his daughters was set in San Francisco?

Full House (1987-95) followed Danny Tanner raising three daughters with Uncle Jesse and Joey in a San Francisco Victorian; its opening credits show the Painted Ladies at Alamo Square.

The Ghirardelli chocolate company was founded in San Francisco in which year?

Domingo Ghirardelli, an Italian confectioner drawn by the Gold Rush, founded the company in San Francisco in 1852, making it the third-oldest US chocolate maker after Baker's and Whitman's.

The Golden Gate strait connects San Francisco Bay to which body of water?

The Golden Gate strait, about three miles long, links San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean; John C. Frémont named it Chrysopylae, Greek for Golden Gate, in 1846.

The Bay Bridge crosses San Francisco Bay to which neighbouring city?

The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge opened in November 1936, six months before the Golden Gate; it carries Interstate 80 on two decks and about 260,000 vehicles a day.

San Francisco is unusual in California for being a consolidated city and what?

It became a combined city-county in 1856.

Which San Francisco hill, crowned by Grace Cathedral, was home to the Big Four railroad barons?

Nob Hill took its name from the 'nabobs' of the Central Pacific Railroad, Stanford, Huntington, Crocker and Hopkins, who built mansions there in the 1870s; Grace Cathedral, completed in 1964, stands on the Crocker block.

In 1994 the Presidio of San Francisco became part of which National Park Service unit?

The Army handed the Presidio to the National Park Service on 1 October 1994 as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area; the Presidio Trust, created in 1996, manages most of its interior.

Union Square in San Francisco is best known as which kind of area?

Union Square is best known for shopping and hotels, ringed by department stores and the Westin St. Francis; the 1903 Dewey Monument stands at its centre.

Coit Tower's interior is decorated with murals in which artistic style?

The frescoes, painted in 1934 under the Public Works of Art Project, are in the American Social Realism style inspired by Diego Rivera, showing Depression-era California workers and street scenes.

Golden Gate Park's west end has two of what, built in 1903 and 1908 for irrigation?

Two windmills, the Dutch Windmill of 1903 and the Murphy Windmill of 1908, once pumped well water to irrigate the park's sandy western end; both were restored after decades of neglect.

Which 1964 bridge took the world's longest suspension span record from the Golden Gate?

The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, opened in November 1964 with a 4,260-foot main span, beat the Golden Gate's 4,200 feet; the Akashi Kaikyo took the length record in 1998.

Before the Golden Gate Bridge opened, how did people cross to Marin?

The Hyde Street to Sausalito ferry took about 20 minutes.

The Painted Ladies row at 710-720 Steiner Street is also nicknamed what?

Postcard Row is the nickname for the Victorians at 710-720 Steiner Street, built by developer Matthew Kavanaugh between 1892 and 1896; the group is also called the Seven Sisters.

The Golden Gate Bridge spans a strait of roughly what width?

The Golden Gate strait is roughly one mile wide at its narrowest; the bridge's 4,200-foot main span between its two towers covers most of that gap.

The de Young Museum and California Academy of Sciences both sit inside which large green space?

Golden Gate Park's Music Concourse holds the de Young Museum, rebuilt in 2005, and the California Academy of Sciences, reopened in 2008 under Renzo Piano's living roof; the Japanese Tea Garden sits alongside.

Which island in San Francisco Bay was built to host the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition?

Treasure Island was created from bay fill in 1936-37 for the 1939-40 Golden Gate International Exposition; the US Navy took it over in 1941 and kept it until 1997.

Which crab is the signature catch sold at Fisherman's Wharf each winter?

Dungeness crab, named for a town on Washington's Olympic Peninsula, is the Wharf's signature catch; the commercial season traditionally opens in mid-November and the crabs are sold boiled from sidewalk cauldrons.

The US Navy suggested painting the Golden Gate Bridge in what scheme, which was rejected?

The Navy wanted black and yellow stripes so that ships could pick out the bridge in fog; consulting architect Irving Morrow argued for International Orange, which also suited the headlands.

What was San Francisco called before Mayor Washington Bartlett renamed it on 30 January 1847?

Yerba Buena, the cove-side village founded by William Richardson in 1835, became San Francisco by Alcalde Washington Bartlett's proclamation of 30 January 1847, after USS Portsmouth sailors had raised the US flag there in July 1846.