Golden Through the Years

The history of the city of San Francisco CA Real Estate is closely intertwined with that of the California Gold Rush. Before the value of a property for sale in San Francisco skyrocketed during those heady, tempestuous years, the city was little more than a sleepy territory with less than a thousand residents.

Once it became known that gold could be found in the hills and rivers of California, however, San Francisco transformed into a boomtown that would surpass all others of its kind, with its population expanding from around 800 in 1848 to 25,000 by the end of 1849. Since then, property for sale in San Francisco has been some of the hottest in California and the rest of the country.

Even before San Francisco incorporated in 1850, however, and before ‘49ers started flooding its port and streets, the Bay Area had already been home to Native Americans who anthropologists now call Costanoans. In 1776, the Spanish put up a presidio and a mission in the area where the city now lies, calling their settlement Yerba Buena. The US claimed the territory from Mexico after the Mexican-American War and renamed it San Francisco (after the bay).

The Gold Rush fueled unprecedented growth in the region, making San Francisco a center of finance, trade and industry. Progress halted when an earthquake struck in 1906 and almost completely devastated the city; but it resumed in full force in the years thereafter as San Franciscans rebuilt their city in even grander style. The city flourished even during the Great Depression era and served as a hub in the Pacific theater of operations in the Second World War.

San Francisco has been the site of pivotal events throughout American and World history. It was here that the UN Charter was drafted and signed and the war with Japan officially ended. It was also in San Francisco that the Beat Generation would launch a poetic renaissance; the hippie culture would find its height in the Summer of Love; the gay rights movement would gain momentum; and the dot-com boom would explode and implode. Things just have a way of happening in San Francisco.