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Founding
Founding of Presidio of San Francisco
place in California listed on National Register of Historic Places
- 1776 – 1994
- North America
Founding
place in California listed on National Register of Historic Places
Fetching the article from Wikipedia…
The Presidio of San Francisco (originally, El Presidio Real de San Francisco or The Royal Fortress of Saint Francis) is a park and former U.S. Army post on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula in San Francisco, California, and is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
It had been a fortified location since September 17, 1776, when New Spain established the presidio to gain a foothold in Alta California and San Francisco Bay. It passed to Mexico in 1820, which in turn passed it to the United States in 1848. As part of a military reduction program under the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process from 1988, Congress voted to end the Presidio's status as an active military installation of the U.S. Army. On October 1, 1994, it was transferred to the National Park Service, ending 219 years of military use and beginning its next phase of mixed commercial and public use.
In 1996, the United States Congress created the Presidio Trust to oversee and manage the interior 80% of the park's lands, with the National Park Service managing the coastal 20%. In a first-of-its-kind structure, Congress mandated that the Presidio Trust make the Presidio financially self-sufficient by 2013. The Presidio achieved the goal in 2005, eight years ahead of the deadline.
The Presidio is at the southern end of the Golden Gate Bridge, and is crossed by the bridge approach road. The park has many wooded areas, hills, and scenic vistas overlooking the Golden Gate itself, the Bridge, San Francisco Bay, and the Pacific Ocean. It was recognized as a California Historical Landmark in 1933 and as a National Historic Landmark in 1962.
The visitor centers are operated by the National Park Service:
The Presidio Officers Club is one of San Francisco’s two oldest buildings, containing walls that were erected by the Spanish around the founding of the Presidio. The mesa room shows all the different layers of the building dating back to the 1790’s adobe brick. The building was remodeled and reopened in 2014 to include a free history museum that tells the story of the Presidio as well as a bar and restaurant and gathering spaces.
A major component of the Presidio's attractions is the Presidio Tunnel Tops, which has been considered the number one thing to do in San Francisco by USA Today and U.S. News & World Report. The Park was created a 14-acre park (5.7 ha) on top of the tunneled portions of Doyle Drive. The park contains several meadows and walking trails, along with viewpoints for major landmarks such as the Golden Gate Bridge. Negotiations between Caltrans, the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, and the Presidio Trust to finalize the land transfer for the park lasted from 2015 to 2018. The budget for the park was $100 million, funded with public funds from the Presidio Trust and private contributions. The park was designed by the creators of New York City’s High Line. The park opened for public use on July 17, 2022. In July 2025, Outpost Meadow, a 1.5 acre expansion opened to the public. Il Parco, a cafe is located at the edge of the Tunnel Tops.
The Presidio was originally a Spanish fort sited by Juan Bautista de Anza on March 28, 1776, built by a party led by José Joaquín Moraga later that year. The limestone used to build the presidio was mined by Ohlones at the Rockaway Quarry. In 1783, the Presidio's garrison numbered only 33 men. Upon Mexican independence from Spain in 1821, it was briefly operated as a Mexican fortification.
The Presidio was seized by the U.S. military at the start of the Mexican–American War in 1846. It was officially reopened by the Americans in 1848 and became home to several army headquarters and units, the last being the United States 6th Army. Several famous U.S. generals, such as William Tecumseh Sherman, George Henry Thomas, and John J. Pershing, made their homes here.
During its long history, the Presidio was involved in most of America's military engagements in the Pacific Rim. Importantly, it was the assembly point for army forces that invaded the Philippines during the Spanish–American War, America's first significant military engagement in the region.
Beginning in the 1890s, the Presidio was home to the Letterman Army Medical Center (LAMC), named in 1911 for Jonathan Letterman, the medical director of the Civil War–era Army of the Potomac. LAMC provided thousands of war-wounded with high-quality medical care during every US foreign conflict of the 20th century.
One of the last two remaining cemeteries within the city's limits is the San Francisco National Cemetery. Among the military personnel interred there are General Frederick Funston, hero of the Spanish–American War and the Philippine–American War and commanding officer of the Presidio at the time of the 1906 earthquake; and General Irvin McDowell, a Union Army commander who lost the First Battle of Bull Run.
The Marine Hospital operated a cemetery for merchant seamen approximately 100–250 yards (91–229 m) from the hospital property. Based on city municipal records, historians estimate that the cemetery was used from 1885 to 1912. As part of the "Trails Forever" initiative, the Parks Conservancy, the National Park Service, and the Presidio Trust partnered to build a walking trail along the south side of the site featuring interpretive signage about its history.
The Presidio was the home of the Western Defense Command headquarters during World War II. It was here that Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt signed 108 Civilian Exclusion Orders and directives for the internment of Japanese Americans under the authority of Executive Order 9066 signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942.
The Presidio sent its few remaining units to war for the last time in 1991 for Desert Storm, the First Gulf War. The role of the Sixth Army was the management of training and coordinating the deployment of Army National Guard and U.S. Army Reserve units in the Western U.S. for Operation Desert Storm.
After a hard-fought battle, the Presidio averted being sold at auction and came under the management of the Presidio Trust, a U.S. government corporation established by an act of Congress in 1996.
The Presidio Trust manages most of the park in partnership with the National Park Service. The trust has jurisdiction over the interior of 80 percent of the Presidio, including nearly all its historic structures. The National Park Service manages coastal areas. Primary law enforcement throughout the Presidio is the jurisdiction of the United States Park Police.
One of the main objectives of the Presidio Trust's program was achieving financial self-sufficiency by fiscal year 2013, which was reached in 2006. Immediately after its inception, the trust began preparing rehabilitation plans for the park. Many areas had to be decontaminated before being prepared for public use.
The Presidio Trust Act calls for the "preservation of the cultural and historic integrity of the Presidio for public use." The Act also requires that the Presidio Trust be financially self-sufficient by 2013. These imperatives have resulted in numerous conflicts between the need to maximize income by leasing historic buildings and permitting public use, despite most structures being rented privately. Further differences have arisen from the divergent needs to preserve the integrity of the National Historic Landmark District in the face of new construction, competing pressures for natural habitat restoration, and requirements for commercial purposes that impede public access.
Crissy Field, a former airfield, has undergone extensive restoration and is now a popular recreational area. It borders on the San Francisco Marina in the east and on the Golden Gate Bridge in the west.
The park has a large inventory of approximately 800 buildings, many of them historical. By 2004, about 50% of the buildings on park grounds had been restored and partially remodeled. The Presidio Trust has contracted commercial real estate management companies to help attract and retain residential and commercial tenants. The total capacity is estimated at 5,000 residents when all buildings have been rehabilitated. Among the Presidio's residents is The Bay School of San Francisco, a private, coeducational college preparatory school located in the central Main Post area. Others include The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Tides Foundation, the Arion Press, Sports Basement Presidio, and The Walt Disney Family Museum, a museum in the memory of Walt Disney. Many various commercial enterprises also lease buildings on the Presidio.
The Thoreau Center for Sustainability preserved sections of the Letterman Army Hospital.
The Presidio of San Francisco is the only site in a national recreation area with an extensive residential leasing program.
The Presidio has four creeks that park stewards and volunteers are restoring to expand their riparian habitats' former extents. The creeks are Lobos and Dragonfly creeks, El Polin Spring, and Coyote Gulch.
The Trust entered a significant agreement with Lucasfilm to build a new facility called the Letterman Digital Arts Center (LDAC), which is now Lucasfilm's corporate headquarters. The site replaced portions of what was the Letterman Hospital. George Lucas won the development rights for 15 acres (6.1 ha) of the Presidio in June 1999, after beating out several rival plans, including a leading proposal by the Shorenstein Company. LDAC replaced the former Lucasfilm headquarters in San Rafael. The $300 million development included nearly 900,000 square feet (84,000 m2) of office space and a 150,000-square-foot (14,000 m2) underground parking garage with a capacity of 2,500 employees. Lucasfilm's Industrial Light & Magic, Lucas Licensing, and Lucas Online divisions reside at the site. George Lucas's proposal included plans for a high-tech Presidio museum and a 7-acre (2.8 ha) "Great Lawn" that is open to the public.
In 2001, American heavy metal band Metallica began recording sessions for their album St. Anger at a studio constructed within the Presido.
In 2007, Donald Fisher, founder of the Gap clothing stores and former board member of the Presidio Trust, announced a plan to build a 100,000-square-foot (9,300 m2) museum tentatively named the Contemporary Art Museum of the Presidio, to house his art collection. Due to opposition, Fisher withdrew his plans to build the museum in the Presidio and instead donated the art to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art before he died in 2009.
As the Doyle Drive viaduct was deemed seismically unsafe and obsolete, construction started with the demolition of Doyle Drive in 2008 to replace the structure with a flat, broad-lane highway with a tunnel through the bluffs above Crissy Field, called the Presidio Parkway. The project cost $1.1 billion and was completed in 2015, a year ahead of schedule.
Between 2006 and 2009, the Presidio Trust constructed the 2.1 mile (3.4 km) Presidio Promenade between Lombard Gate and the Letterman Digital Arts Center (home to Lucasfilm) to the Main Post and Golden Gate Bridge. The Promenade was completed as part of a park wide trail expansion project that resulted in over 24 miles (39 km) of hiking trails and 19 miles (30 km) of bike lanes.
In October 2008, artist Andy Goldsworthy constructed the first of a series of sculptures in the Presidio, the Spire. It is 100 feet (30 m) tall and located near the Arguello Gate. It represents the tree replanting effort that has been underway at the Presidio. Spire was followed by Wood Line in 2011, Tree Fall in 2013, and Earth Wall in 2014.
In 2010, a trampoline park called House of Air opened inside of an old aircraft hangar.
On April 12, 2026, the Trump Administration terminated all six board members of The Presidio Trust. All the members were appointed by President Joe Biden. Trump appointed a new board in May.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Presidio of San Francisco”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.