Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
DON'T MISS
GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE
Hard to believe the Navy almost nixed SF's signature art-deco landmark by archi-
tects Gertrude and Irving Murrow and engineer Joseph B Strauss. Photographers,
take your cue from Hitchcock: seen from Fort Point, the 1937 bridge induces a thrill-
ing case of vertigo. Fog aficionados prefer Marin's Vista Point, watching gusts billow
through bridge cables like dry ice at a Kiss concert. For the full effect, hike or bike
the 2-mile span.
History
Oysters and acorn bread were prime dinner options in the Mexico-run Ohlone settlement
of San Francisco circa 1848 - but a year and some gold nuggets later, Champagne and
chow mein were served by the bucket. Gold found in nearby Sierra Nevada foothills
turned a sleepy 800-person village into a port city of 100,000 prospectors, con artists,
prostitutes and honest folk - good luck telling them apart in the city's 200 saloons.
Panic struck when Australia glutted the market with gold in 1854. Rioters burned water-
front 'Sydney-Town' before turning on SF's Chinese community, who from 1877 to 1945
were restricted to living and working in Chinatown by anti-Chinese exclusion laws.
Chinese laborers were left with few employment options besides dangerous work building
railroads for San Francisco's robber barons, who dynamited, mined and clear-cut their way
across the Golden West, and built Nob Hill mansions above Chinatown.
But the city's grand ambitions came crashing down in 1906, when earthquake and fire
reduced the city to rubble. Theater troupes and opera divas performed for free amid smol-
dering ruins, and reconstruction hummed along at an astounding rate of 15 buildings per
day.
During WWII, soldiers accused of insubordination and homosexuality were dismissed
in San Francisco, as though that would teach them a lesson. Instead San Francisco's coun-
terculture thrived, with North Beach jazz and Beat poetry. When the Central Intelligence
