San Francisco's Excelsior District

Book excerpt: The Excelsior District traditionally has not been among San Francisco's "spotlight" neighborhoods, yet this area is an important residential and commercial zone that is home to some 30,000 residents. These rolling hills south of San Francisco's better-known districts are now covered with row upon row of houses, streets, and apartments. But places like the Excelsior were once sparsely populated, agrarian, and even rural. This volume of vintage photographs chronicles the Excelsior's intriguing journey from rugged swamp and farmland to the busy cosmopolitan neighborhood we know today. It is a tale of determined immigrant families putting down roots in a challenging locale and overcoming adversity to stake out a permanent enclave in this famed city. It is also a story of large-scale construction and reclamation to tame the rugged outskirts of San Francisco.