Historical Marker · No. 394
Site of the Discovery of San Francisco Bay
Pacifica, San Mateo County · California
The bronze that names this site stands two miles away at the highway, because the site itself is a ridge you reach on foot. What happened here on 4 November 1769 was not first sight of the bay. The estuary's mouth had been visible from the Montara summit four days earlier, and deer hunters had walked up and seen the whole arm of it on 2 November. On the 4th the whole party looked, kept it on their left, and went south, still hunting Monterey. No state plaque stands here; a carved boulder does.
What the plaque says
From this ridge the Portolá Expedition discovered San Francisco Bay November 4, 1769
Where it stands
37.60455, -122.45786 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- Muir Beach Overlook — 19 miA cliff edge on Highway 1, and the concrete dugouts where two-man crews watched the sea after Pearl Harbor.
- Muir Woods National Monument — 21 miA redwood canyon saved from a reservoir by a gift, and named for a man who had been there once.