Old Park Farm, or Richmond Dairy, looking southeast across 21st Avenue from Clement Street, circa 1908. Strawberry Hill on the right and Affiliated Colleges, today’s UCSF, in the distance behind windmill. – Courtesy of outsidelands.org

The photo above is one of the first “jaw-droppers” I came across when I started this blog a few years ago. Our neighborhood was once known as the Outside Lands, with nothing but miles of sand dunes. So it shouldn’t be that surprising to see a vintage photo of a dairy farm at 21st and Clement. Still, there’s something odd about imagining cattle roaming around an area that is now home to Aladdin Rugs.

The photo is part of an interesting article, “Farms? In San Francisco?”, published in the Western Neighborhoods Project October 2011 newsletter:

Just a few blocks east, at the intersection of 21st Avenue and Clement Street, stood one of the pioneer dairies of the area. Theophilis Patten ran thirty-three head of cattle in the middle of the growing residential neighborhood, pasturing the cows on open hills nearby. Patten had started the dairy in 1880, when Point Lobos Road (Geary Boulevard today) was the only path out from the city and not another building stood within a mile. “The life of this dairyman as he galloped over the hills to collect his cows, smacked of that of the cow punchers.”

The article also talks about a bustling dog kennel that operated at 25th Avenue and Lake. Read the full article at outsidelands.org

Mooooooo!

Sarah B.

The same view in present day of the southeast corner of 21st and Clement

We gathered at the Immigrant Overlook above Baker Beach to watch last night’s solar eclipse which was pretty frickin’ cool. Everyone had different ways of viewing it – some with makeshift pinhole camera devices, others with “sanctioned’ eclipse glasses, telescopes, solar-filtered cameras, and some even wearing several pairs of sunglasses at the same time to diffuse the sun.

The photo above was posted by Ocu-Master who rigged his 700mm telescope like a pinhole camera and for some unknown reason, projected it onto a coffee filter (maybe the only white, thick paper object he had on hand?). Hey, whatever it takes!

To see more pics of the actual sun during the eclipse, check out SFGate.

Sarah B.

The Holy Virgin Russian Orthodox Cathedral on Geary. Photo by Liz S.

Photo by Andrew Louie

Click photo to enlarge

Inside the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. Photo by caruba

Billington brothers and friend inside Sutro Baths, c. 1900

Recently, the team at the de Young Museum came across a stash of over seventy glass plate negatives in their basement, all depicting scenes from Land’s End and old San Francisco. The images are over 100 years old.

The negatives were sent to the paper conservation lab at the Legion of Honor for cleaning and restoration – you can get all the nitty gritty details about the work at the de Young’s blog.

The project brought to light some really interesting photos, including one of the foundation of the first Cliff House before it was built.

The photos were taken by photographers (and brothers) W.C.and J.R. Billington. “The Billingtons owned several studios during this time, most notably the Sutro Heights Gallery at the Land’s End Parapet, where they sold specialty views of Seal Rocks, Land’s End and the Golden Gate,” wrote the de Young.

I hope all of these negatives see the light of day in a future exhibition! As they said on their blog, “It couldn’t be more fitting that the negatives produced at Land’s End were conserved over one hundred years later, only a mile away at the Legion of Honor.”

Sarah B.

Cliff House from Parapet, Sutro Heights, c. 1900 (positive 2012)

It’s not just the Great Blue Herons that are nesting and raising babies at Stow Lake right now. The Canadian Geese are busy too. Thanks to Thomas K. Pendergast for snapping this cute pic of a mom with her babes.

“What’s amazing to me is this is really the newest generation of dinosaurs, that is, birds in general are direct descendants of the dinosaurs who managed to survive the asteroid 65 million years ago. With these little goslings I can see them as tiny baby raptors,” Thomas wrote.

Sarah B.

Photo by Hanson Switzky

You still have a couple more weekends to spy on the Great Blue Herons that are nesting at Stow Lake!

Sarah B.