Did you know? · San Francisco
San Francisco fun facts
Things you might not know about San Francisco. Every fact comes from an official or primary source, named alongside it.
Updated October 2026
A chapel from 1791
The adobe chapel of Mission San Francisco de Asís, Mission Dolores, was completed in 1791 and survived the 1906 earthquake. It is the oldest intact building in San Francisco (nps.gov).
A landmark that moves
Andrew Hallidie’s first cable car climbed Clay Street in 1873. The surviving system, the last manually operated cable cars in the world, became a National Historic Landmark in 1964: one of the few that moves (sfmta.com).
Ships under the streets
During the Gold Rush, hundreds of ships were left in Yerba Buena Cove as their crews headed for the goldfields. Some became stores and lodgings, and the remains of several now lie beneath the landfill of the Financial District, far from today’s shoreline (San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, nps.gov).
Irish coffee, 1952
The Buena Vista, by the Hyde Street cable car turnaround, says it served America’s first Irish coffee in November 1952, and it still makes them by the dozen (thebuenavista.com).
A dressing named after a play
Green Goddess dressing was created at the Palace Hotel in 1923, the hotel says, in honour of the actor George Arliss, then starring in the play The Green Goddess (Palace Hotel).
A saloon under a pyramid
The Transamerica Pyramid, completed in 1972, stands on the site of the Montgomery Block, home of the Bank Exchange saloon, where pisco punch became the drink of nineteenth-century San Francisco.
The sea lions who moved in
California sea lions began hauling out on the docks of PIER 39 in January 1990, a few months after the Loma Prieta earthquake of October 1989, and they have stayed ever since (pier39.com).
Eight hairpins
The famous block of Lombard Street, between Hyde and Leavenworth, was given its eight hairpin bends in 1922 to make the steep hill safer (sftravel.com).
The city’s first poet laureate
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, co-founder of City Lights bookshop in North Beach, became San Francisco’s first poet laureate in 1998 (citylights.com).
The survivor of a world’s fair
The Palace of Fine Arts, by Bernard Maybeck, is the only building of the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition still on its original site. Built to be temporary, it was reconstructed in permanent materials in the 1960s.
Questions and answers
What is the oldest building in San Francisco?
The adobe chapel of Mission Dolores, completed in 1791.
Where was Irish coffee first served in America?
The Buena Vista says it served America’s first Irish coffee in 1952.