Hidden Histories

  Long Bridge was built in 1865, so this image has to have been taken after that. In the center of the mile long bridge that crossed Mission Bay was a ferry landing where pigs, sheep and cattle were unloaded to be herded off to "Butchertown" in the present Dogpatch neighborhhood. Long bridge was the first major incursion into the bay and its path is roughly shadowed by Third street today. It was originally built to open up trolley service to the Bayview racetrack and it served to open up the Potrero to further homesteading. Before this bridge was built, a trip from San Francisco to the Potrero was a long curcuitous trip across the Mission or Folsom "Plank" roads.