Recent Streetsblog SF posts about History

Of Cable Cars and Whales

By Chris Carlsson | Jul 19, 2010 | 12 Comments

A Clay Street Hill Railroad dummy and traile cable car atop Nob Hill, c. 1875. The invention of cable cars in 1873 by Andrew Hallidie is an oft-told saga, with a perhaps apocryphal point of origin on a rainy winter day in 1869 when he saw a team of horses pulling a horsecar up a […]

The Heyday of Horsecars

By Chris Carlsson | Jun 14, 2010 | 5 Comments

In 1907 the horse was still a major part of the transportation picture, but the horsecars that dominated the 19th century were being replaced. Editor’s note: This is one in an occasional series of stories on the history of transit in San Francisco. After walking through the mud and sand of early San Francisco, locals […]

Wind Powered Transportation…Back Then

By Chris Carlsson | May 13, 2010 | 3 Comments

This is the second installment of a slow journey through San Francisco transit history. All of this information is derived from our Shaping San Francisco collection that you can explore on Foundsf.org. "Arrived All Well" by William Coulter (1909) is a painting that hung in the Merchant Exchange over the chalkboards that indicated what cargoes […]

Put it on the Street, A Look at Curbside Recycling

By Chris Carlsson | Apr 30, 2010 | 10 Comments

Ever wonder where your garbage goes? This is the first stop on the way to the big land fill at Altamont Pass. (Editor’s note: this is the latest installment from contributor Chris Carlsson, The Nowtopian) At least once a week all of us in San Francisco schlep our garbage to the curb to be picked […]

Walking through the Sand

By Chris Carlsson | Apr 12, 2010 | 10 Comments

I’ll be slowly going through San Francisco transit history over the next few months. All of this information is derived from our Shaping San Francisco collection that you can explore on Foundsf.org. Also, I’ll be conducting a 4-hour "Transit history" bike tour on Sat. April 24. Today we start where it all began, in the […]