San Francisco: A Natural History

Images of America: California

by Greg Gaar, Ryder W. Miller

The real San Francisco lies below the streets, sidewalks, and buildings, hidden from view. This famous city is known for its beautiful setting of water, trees, hills, and beaches, but relatively few people know of its true natural state. Before it was built up and paved over, the earth here was a diverse ecosystem of creeks, marshes, sand dunes, estuaries, and densely forested hills. Over this landscape roamed elk, rabbit, bears, bobcat, and mountain lion, and the now-crowded bayfront teemed with mollusks, otters, dolphins, and whales, while huge flocks of birds blocked out the sun overhead. Today, only about two percent of the city's natural areas remain as they were.

Genres: History

128 pages, Paperback

First published May 30, 2005

Reviews

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this book was like pulling a well-loved but worn teddy out of the chest. I recalled hiking the city's hills, creeks and dunes in the fifties, flying kites up on Bernal Heights and sliding down Twin Peaks on cardboard. ...and thought about what's been lost. If that was the sum, it would be an interesting read.

Gaar and Miller took it beyond a catalog of losses to present successes and achievable steps for preservation and restoration. The city has taken a beating, being filled, leveled, dredged, paved and infested with non-native species--thanks to our own manifest destiny. San Francisco: A Natural History makes a strong case for embracing what was ours while sharing our city's natural landscape, past and present, in word and image.

[Alaina · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a fine book, and the authors do an admirable job of describing both the historical and present-day natural history. I can only mark it three stars because the quality of the images is wanting. I don't know if it's that the originals had poor contrast, or the scanning is suboptimal, or what, but many of them, especially when it's just foliage and hills, sort of blur together and make it difficult to distinguish details.

[Karel Baloun · Rating 4 out of 5]

So many Amazing classic photos. Sand dunes covering the sunset district in 1900?!

The focus on the natural history imbues a sense of timelessness, and the encouragement of restoration and rehabilitation inspires hope.

[Luis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some fun photos, but many you’ve probably already seen before (or seen similar) if you’re into SF history. Per-chapter-micro-essays and captions are much better than the average book in this series!

[g-na · Rating 4 out of 5]

San Francisco's natural landscape, its flora, fauna, and landscape, were completely different than they are today. Just a few decades after Europeans settled here The City took on an entirely new face, and it is extremely interesting to read about what SF used to look like. Highly recommended.