Articles tagged with: Historic

Additional Photos from the Ridge: You can check out additional Sweeney Ridge photographs and the street art we found at the Nike Radar Station in our Multimedia section.

By Roy Morlidge / Beat Staff Writer

On some days the weather can be so hot that hiking Sweeney Ridge in San Mateo County’s coast mountain range can be exhausting. On others, the wind and fog make it impossible to see very far in front of you. But on those California days when the weather is perfect, a hike up historic Sweeney Ridge will reveal to you the San Francisco Bay Area in all its glory.

There are many trails that go up Sweeney Ridge, but the California Beat recommends the Sneath Lane Trail as your starting point. Located conveniently at the end of Sneath Lane, the trail is paved for hiking and bicycling. Parking is available at the start of the trail. Another …

The infamous 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire nearly destroyed the city overnight, but one iconic neighborhood withstood the shaking and carnage. As a matter of fact, Roy Morlidge tells us that the Jackson Square Historic District is still standing today – whiskey factory and all. (more. . .)

The Second World War was an important time in the development of San Francisco Bay Area. With it’s proximity to the Pacific Theater, military bases were quickly mobilized and placed on alert. In addition, the bay made for an excellent place for wartime industries to kick up production of supplies and equipment. For many young men bound for service in the Pacific, San Francisco would be their last view of the continental United States until war’s end.

Many of the wartime sites are silent now. Some are gone while others are crumbling away. However moored at Pier 45 in San Francisco, the Liberty ship S.S. Jeremiah O’Brien still actively sails as a reminder of the past.

Easy and quick to build, the whole purpose of the Liberty ship was to carry supplies from the states to the Allied forces fighting in the European and Pacific Theaters. Manned by the U.S. Merchant Marine …

During the Second World War, perhaps no branch of the United States Navy held as much difficulty and danger then that of the submarine service. While it was the smallest branch in the Navy, the submarine service would at war’s end have the largest casualty percentage of any military service. While there really is no way of truly understanding the risks the service carried with it unless you actually lived it, you can get a small glimpse by visiting one of the wartime submarines. Moored along San Francisco’s Pier 45, is a chance to do just that with the U.S.S. Pampanito.

Built and commissioned at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in New Hampshire in 1943, the U.S.S. Pampanito is a distinguished combat veteran of the war. The Balao class diesel submarine made a total of six combat patrols in the Pacific theater and would sink or destroy ten Japanese vessels. In 1986, …

The California mission system is perhaps the best known survivor of the Spanish period of the state’s history. However in retrospect, few people know the names and locations of all twenty-one of them. Of course there are the well known ones like those in Carmel and San Francisco, but what about the others?

Tucked away in the city of Fremont stands one of these lesser known missions — Mission San Jose.

For one of the tiniest communities east of San Francisco in the suburban town of Fremont, Niles, California probably has more references to Charlie Chaplin than Hollywood itself.

You will find images of him almost everywhere — from illustrations hanging on the wall next to the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, to a pint-sized Chaplin doll helping sell delicious Root Beer floats at the Remember When deli.

In fact, at one point, this town was considered “America’s ‘first’ Hollywood.”

The architecture, the bright colors, and the non-conformist attitude still make the Haight-Ashbury a worthy place to visit whether you’re a tourist wanting to see the sights of San Francisco or just someone who wants to reconnect with a revolutionary time in United States History. This was the playground for Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. Roy Morlidge takes you to some of the spots that gave the jump-start to these musical legends.

The interplay between the old and the new in Half Moon Bay really does serve to make the town a unique place to come see. If you’re looking for that independent spirit in a place that seems distant from the hustle and bustle of the Metropolitan Bay Area but is still within an hour’s drive of San Francisco, this is certainly the place to be.

At 5:12 a.m. on the morning of April 18, 1906, the city of San Francisco shook from the power of a massive earthquake. What followed would be three days of chaos as fires swept across downtown San Francisco leaving it in ruins. Amazingly, not all of the old Gold Rush era city was lost as is proven by the buildings which now make up the area now known as the Jackson Square Historic District.

Best seen along the area at the intersection of Montgomery and Jackson Streets, Jackson Square provides the best location to see buildings which were originally built during the Gold Rush era. As a result, it is also home to numerous buildings which at one time were occupied by some of history’s most interesting personalities.