Explore
the Neighborhood
Today, the area to the south of Market Street in San Francisco - known simply as "South of Market" - is a maze of apartments, offices, shops and industry. In the Gold Rush years it was a wilderness of sand dunes and marshland that lay on the fringes of San Francisco. As industries were attracted to its springs, creeks and bay shore, the area began to grow. Sand dunes were leveled, low spots filled, and people, many of them immigrants, came looking for housing and work. In 1906, the Great San Francisco Earthquake and fire leveled almost every building. Today, archaeologists work to uncover the neighborhood, and learn about the people who lived there.
Directions
to the Neighborhood
See the location of San Francisco and the South of Market area. 
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Examine a detailed map of the South of Market area.
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The
Neighborhood Through Time 
Where tidal marshes once lay, now cars fly along the Interstate 80
freeway. Take a trip through the South of Market neighborhood, learn
its history and see how it's changed.
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Meet
the People
The South of Market neighborhood has always been home to San Francisco's
migrant communities. Come and meet the people, some of them wealthy,
many of them barely getting by, who in the nineteenth century called
these neighborhood blocks their home.
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In
the Schoolyard
Learn about the history and archaeology of the famous Silver Street
Kindergarten, the first free kindergarten west of the Rocky Mountains.
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Watch this space for upcoming insights into the
history and archaeology of the South of Market Neighborhood...