For the latest edition of our “Great Cities” series, LIFE.com features classic photographs of that smallish, hilly gem by the Bay: San Francisco. For a town its size—with a population of 800,000, it has just a quarter as many people as, for example, Brooklyn—San Francisco holds a forceful grip on the imagination of people around the country and around the world.
From the legendary, wide-open debauchery of the Gold Rush years to the Beat poets of North Beach in the 1950s; the Haight-Ashbury era and the brief (over-romanticized) Summer of Love of the Sixties; the locavore restaurant revolution, which arguably started in the East Bay with Chez Panisse; the unstoppable flowering of gay rights; the first stirrings of “maker culture” and the dawn of the Digital Age (Wired magazine, etc.), San Francisco and environs have been at the center of countless movements and “isms” for more than a century and a half.
The pictures here document The City (as San Franciscans habitually call it) from the 1930s to the early 1970s—a handful of decades during which SF transformed itself as dramatically as any metropolis in America. Despite all the upheaval it’s endured, however, San Francisco remains a singular place. It’s at-once whimsical and tough, self-absorbed and endearing—a cultured, world-class city that retains some of its Wild West character, while harboring neighborhoods that feel like distinct, companionable hamlets.
So, let’s celebrate a great American city. Whatever you do, though, do not call it “Frisco.” San Franciscans young and old get weirdly worked up about that nickname. You’ve been warned.
At the scene of the 1939-1940 Golden Gate International Exposition, San Francisco, 1938.Alfred Eisenstaedt—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesAt the scene of the 1939-1940 Golden Gate International Exposition, San Francisco, 1939.Horace Bristol—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesFerry near the the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, 1941.Peter Stackpole—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesFong-Fong bakery and ice cream parlor, 1941.Peter Stackpole—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesDiego Rivera working on pencil sketches for huge mural depicting Pan-American unity, Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco, 1941.Peter Stackpole—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesShipyard ironworkers, San Francisco, 1942.Hansel Mieth and Otto Hagel—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesStreets of San Francisco, 1942.Hansel Mieth and Otto Hagel—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesSan Francisco, 1942.Hansel Mieth and Otto Hagel—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesA civilian observer and plane-spotter, San Francisco, 1942.Hansel Mieth—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCemetery of Mission Dolores, San Francisco, 1942.Hansel Mieth and Otto Hagel—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesNewspapers welcome Madame Chiang Kai-Shek to San Francisco, 1943.Hansel Mieth—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesAmerican troops, San Francisco, 1945.Peter Stackpole—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesAuthor Gertrude Atherton and her dog outside of her home in San Francisco, 1946.Nat Farbman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesCable car turnaround, San Francisco, 1947.Charles E. Steinheimer—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesView of San Francisco, 1947.Andreas Feininger—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesSan Francisco, 1947.Charles E. Steinheimer—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesDrive-in theater, San Francisco, 1948.Allan Grant—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesGolden Gate Bridge at sunset, 1951.Margaret Bourke-White—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesSouth San Francisco, 1951.Margaret Bourke-White—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesDancing the mambo at San Francisco's Macumba Club, 1954.Nat Farbman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesPacific Heights, 1955.Nat Farbman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesThe Tin Angel, a waterfront nightclub, San Francisco, 1955.Nat Farbman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesView of the Golden Gate Bridge toward the hills of Marin County, 1955.Nat Farbman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesSan Francisco bar, 1956.Nat Farbman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesGetting one's hair done in San Francisco, 1956.Leonard McCombe—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesLawrence Ferlinghetti at City Lights, 1957.Nat Farbman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesKenneth Rexroth at a poetry reading, 1957.Nat Farbman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesHousing construction in San Francisco, 1958.Nat Farbman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesLooking at Alcatraz, 1958.Nat Farbman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesWillie Mays and young fan, San Francisco, 1958.George Silk—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesOpening of the boating season on San Francisco Bay, 1958.Nat Farbman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesOpening Day at Candlestick Park, 1960.Allan Grant—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesPalace of Fine Arts, San Francisco, 1962.Walker Evans—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesThe Beatles at a press conference, San Francisco, 1964.Bill Ray—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesBrand new BART, 1967.John Dominis—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesVietnam War protestors, San Francisco, 1967.Ralph Crane—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesSan Francisco, 1969.Lee Balterman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesAbove San Francisco, 1969.Lee Balterman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesBlack Panthers protest, San Francisco, 1970.Ralph Crane—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesAuthor Richard Brautigan with his daughter, San Francisco, 1970.Vernon Merritt III—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesDianne Feinstein, San Francisco mayoral race, 1971.Michael Rougier—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesAnti-war march, San Francisco, 1972.Ralph Crane—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images