"The City by the Bay" a San Francisco Travel Page by altizachen

It’s rare to find a real “San Franciscan.” Not only was I born here and still reside, but surprisingly my family has been here since the 1890’s. My great-great-granfather's store was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake, it's somewhere in the picture above.

So it’s safe to say that I am an original. If you’re looking ideas on your travels to San Francisco you’ve found the right person.

San Francisco started out as a small village known as Yerba Buena, which means good herb in Spanish. No it’s not what you’re thinking; the herb that made the hippies famous. The herb that I am talking about was a type of mint found along the shoreline. San Francisco was taken control of by the US government as a result of the Mexican American War and the American Flag was raised in the town square in 1846.

. Since the formation of this wonderful city we’ve seen just about everything: the people who rushed here thinking that they would strike it rich with gold in 1849, the Australian gangs who terrorized the city in the 1850’s, the earthquake that leveled us out in 1906, the flu that killed 3500 people in 1918, the building of the Golden Gate Bridge in the 1930’s, Japanese citizens having their homes taken and being put into concentration camps in the 1940’s, hippies in the 60’s, the Indians taking over Alcatraz in 1969, AIDS in the 80’s, the earthquake that nearly snapped the Bay Bridge in half in 1989, and the death of Joe Di Maggio in 1999.