FoundSF

Unfinished History

Taken from the slopes of today's "Silver Terrace" looking northwest across the wetlands of Islais Creek with Bernal Heights at left and Potrero Hill at right, the Mission District through the gap in the middle, where Precita Creek drained into the same wetlands.

Photo: Bancroft Library

View west on Oakdale toward Phelps. Haley & O'Neill Homestead, "south San Francisco," M.E. Church at left, c. 1865.

Photo: OpenSFHistory.org wnp26.685

The Haley & O'Neill Homestead Association was one of many such endeavors in the 1860s and 1870s that helped subdivide and sell off San Francisco real estate. An 1867 Alta California ad for the Haley and O’Neill Tract, bounded by today’s Evans Avenue, Bayshore Boulevard, Third Street and Revere Avenue, stated that “the lands cover the most beautiful locality in the city of San Francisco, famous for productiveness of soil and freedom from the prevailing winds and fogs of the city, as well as for picturesque and beautiful views.”

Echoing the claims of twenty years prior, the owners felt that the new lands were an ideal place for settlement. They waited for the multitudes to arrive. In a repeat of history, few came. This was still an area that most people considered too far away from the commercial center of San Francisco.