Grant Avenue, where the city was born

You are standing on the oldest street in San Francisco. In 1835 there was nothing here but sand dunes and scrub. Its first name says it all: Calle de la Fundación, the Street of the Founding.

1From mission to Yerba Buena

The written story begins in 1776, when a Spanish expedition founded the presidio and the Mission San Francisco de Asís, known today as Mission Dolores, about three kilometers to the southwest. For decades this shore of the bay was little more than an anchorage. In June 1835, English sailor William A. Richardson put up the first dwelling of the new village of Yerba Buena: a tent made from a ship's sail. The plaque at number 823 marks that beginning.

2The square of gold

Half a block east lies Portsmouth Square, the old village plaza. On July 9, 1846, Captain John B. Montgomery landed from the USS Portsmouth and raised the United States flag there. The following year, Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco. In May 1848, merchant Sam Brannan walked these streets holding up a bottle of gold dust and shouting that it came from the American River. The town, fewer than a thousand people, emptied out for the diggings, and within a few years it filled up again with tens of thousands of newcomers from around the world.

The street changed its name twice: it became Dupont Street and, after the 1906 earthquake, Grant Avenue, in honor of President Ulysses S. Grant.

Portsmouth Square has been under renovation since 2026, so you may find it fenced off.

3What to look for

• The «Birthplace of a great city» plaque, beside the doorway of 823 Grant Avenue.
• The Transamerica Pyramid, peeking out behind Portsmouth Square and pointing the way to the next stop.