EVOLUTION OF SAN FRANCISCO | 3D CITY TIMELAPSE (1700–NOW)

Watch San Francisco grow from Yelamu villages and a Spanish fort into one of the world's best-known cities, rebuilt in 3D year by year from real maps and city data. A downtown built on buried ships. A city that burned and rose again. Two bridges that changed the bay. 🌿 BEFORE THE CITY (before 1769) Yelamu, a Ramaytush Ohlone people, live in villages on this peninsula, by the lagoon where Mission Bay is today. ⛪ SPAIN AND MEXICO (1776 – 1847) In 1776 Spain founds the Presidio at the entrance to the bay. Mission Dolores finishes its adobe church in 1791; it is the oldest building in the city. In 1846 the US flag rises over the plaza, and in 1847 Yerba Buena is renamed San Francisco. ⛏️ THE GOLD RUSH (1848 – 1856) Gold! The town grows from about 1,000 to some 25,000 people. Hundreds of ships are abandoned in the cove, and some become stores and hotels. Great fires burn the wooden town six times in eighteen months. Then sand and wrecks fill Yerba Buena Cove: downtown now stands on buried ships. 🏛️ THE VICTORIAN CITY (1857 – 1905) Fort Point guards the Golden Gate (1861), Hallidie's cable car climbs Clay Street (1873), Golden Gate Park is planted on sand dunes, and Sutro Baths (1896) and the Ferry Building (1898) open. 🔥 1906 (18–21 April 1906) At 5:12 am the great earthquake rips along the San Andreas Fault. Fire burns for days and destroys about 500 city blocks, and soldiers dynamite Van Ness Avenue to stop it. Over 200,000 people lose their homes, and tent camps fill the parks. 🌉 REBUILDING AND THE BRIDGES (1907 – 1945) The city rebuilds and hosts the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition on filled bay marsh; only the Palace of Fine Arts stays. City Hall opens, and Coit Tower rises on Telegraph Hill. The Bay Bridge opens in 1936 and the Golden Gate Bridge in 1937. Treasure Island hosts a world's fair, and Hunters Point shipyard works around the clock for the war. 🏙️ POSTWAR CITY AND LOMA PRIETA (1946 – 1991) The Embarcadero Freeway walls off the Ferry Building (1959). Indians of All Tribes occupy Alcatraz for 19 months (1969–71). The Transamerica Pyramid rises, and BART trains run in a tube under the bay. On 17 October 1989 the Loma Prieta earthquake sets the Marina on fire and drops a section of the Bay Bridge's upper deck. The damaged freeway comes down, and the waterfront opens up again. 💻 TECH CITY (1992 – 2026) The new Bay Bridge east span opens in 2013, Salesforce Tower becomes the tallest building in the city, and the fog still rolls in through the Golden Gate. ⏱️ CHAPTERS 0:00 Intro 0:18 Yelamu Land 0:32 Spanish & Mexican Era 1:09 Gold Rush 1:49 Victorian City 3:04 1906 Earthquake & Fire 3:46 Rebuilding & the 1915 Fair 4:34 Bridges & War 5:57 Postwar City 7:15 Loma Prieta 1989 7:49 Tech City 8:41 Fog at the Golden Gate 8:55 What's Next 📌 ABOUT THIS RECONSTRUCTION An illustrative 3D reconstruction, not archival footage. Buildings: OpenStreetMap outlines and heights, San Francisco Planning construction years; street trees from DataSF. Hills and bay floor: NOAA CUDEM. Old shorelines: US Coast Survey maps (1852–1869); buried ships: Kortum & Soeten (1963). The 1906 fire follows the SFFD Museum's fire boundary and paths (spread between dated points estimated). Built in our own 3D engine. Landmark models were built in code; AI-generated reference sheets were used as visual guides only. Dates for ordinary buildings are estimated where records are missing, and the landmark models are simplified. 🙏 CREDITS Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL): https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright San Francisco Planning, City and County of San Francisco: year built, landmarks, blocks, open spaces, the georeferenced 1869 map DataSF (San Francisco Public Works): Street Tree Inventory (ODC PDDL) NOAA NCEI: CUDEM 1/9 arc-second topobathy US Coast Survey topographic sheets 1852–1858 (A.F. Rodgers) and the 1869 map (public domain) Karl Kortum & Harlan Soeten, map of Gold Rush vessels 1850–1963 (San Francisco Maritime NHP), reference for ship positions SFFD Museum (guardiansofthecity.org): 1906 fire boundary and paths Population: US Census Bureau Which city should we rebuild next? Tell us in the comments. Subscribe to Cornerstone Timelapse for more cities, from first stone to skyline. #sanfrancisco #timelapse #3d #evolution #city #history #animation #sanfranciscohistory