The San Francisco Historical Society is a

nonprofit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

dedicated to the preservation, interpretation, and presentation of the history of

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

and the surrounding

Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose. The Association of Bay Area Governments ...

. It is a membership-based organization that holds monthly speaking programs, conducts walking tours of San Francisco, provides educational resources for grade schools and publishes original research. It owns the Barbary Coast Trail walking tour and publishes the biannual journal ''Argonaut''. As of 2021, it has just under 2,000 members.

History

The San Francisco Historical Society was founded in 1988 by historian Charles A. Fracchia. In February 2002, the San Francisco Historical Society merged with the Museum of the City of San Francisco to create the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society, which the San Francisco municipal government recognized as the official historical museum of San Francisco. One of the purposes of the merger of the two organizations was to put together a single proposal to renovate and operate the Old San Francisco Mint as a history museum. The San Francisco Museum and Historical Society took over management of the Old Mint in 2004, with plans to make it the museum's permanent home. The organization spent about US$14 million to stabilize and partially renovate the building. However, the building still needed about US$60 million in additional work, and the City of San Francisco concluded the organization was not making progress quickly enough after 11 years of work, so it ordered SFMHS to vacate the building in 2015. In 2019, the San Francisco Historical Society returned to its original name. In October of that year, the society moved into its first museum space, at 608 Commercial Street, in San Francisco.

References

External links

San Francisco Historical Society
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Failed museum proposals in the United States Non-profit organizations based in San Francisco Historical societies in California History of San Francisco