page_title: Presidio of San Francisco
section_title: Early history
hierarchical_section_title: Presidio of San Francisco / History / Early history
caption_attribution_description: Battery Chamberlin (built 1943) — at Fort Miley Military Reservation, on the western headlands of San Francisco, California.Fort Miley (p7040130)
context_page_description: The Presidio of San Francisco is a park and former U.S. Army military fort on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula in San Francisco, California, and is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
  It had been a fortified location since September 17, 1776, when New Spain established the presidio to gain a foothold in Alta California and the San Francisco Bay. It passed to Mexico, which in turn passed it to the United States in 1848. As part of a 1989 military reduction program under the Base Realignment and Closure process, Congress voted to end the Presidio's status as an active military installation of the U.S. Army. On October 1, 1994, it was transferred to the National Park Service, ending 219 years of military use and beginning its next phase of mixed commercial and public use.
  In 1996, the United States Congress created the Presidio Trust to oversee and manage the interior 80% of the park's lands, with the National Park Service managing the coastal 20%. In a first-of-its-kind structure, Congress mandated that the Presidio Trust make the Presidio financially self-sufficient by 2013.
context_section_description: The Presidio was originally a Spanish fort sited by Juan Bautista de Anza on March 28, 1776, built by a party led by José Joaquín Moraga later that year. In 1783, the Presidio's garrison numbered only 33 men. Upon Mexican independence from Spain in 1821, it was briefly operated as a Mexican fortification.
  The Presidio was seized by the U.S. military at the start of the Mexican–American War in 1846. It was officially re-opened by the Americans in 1848 and became home to several army headquarters and units, the last being the United States 6th Army. Several famous U.S. generals, such as William Sherman, George Henry Thomas, and John Pershing, made their homes here.
  During its long history, the Presidio was involved in most of America's military engagements in the Pacific Rim. Importantly, it was the assembly point for army forces that invaded the Philippines during the Spanish–American War, America's first major military engagement in the region.
  Beginning in the 1890s, the Presidio was home to the Letterman Army Medical Center (LAMC), named in 1911 for Jonathan Letterman, the medical director of the Civil War era Army of the Potomac. LAMC provided thousands of war-wounded with high quality medical care during every US foreign conflict of the 20th century.
  One of the last two remaining cemeteries within the city's limits is the San Francisco National Cemetery. Among the military personnel interred there are General Federick Funston, hero of the Spanish–American War, Philippine–American War, and commanding officer of the Presidio at the time of the 1906 earthquake; and General Irvin McDowell, a Union Army commander who was defeated by the Confederates in the First Battle of Bull Run.
  The Marine Hospital operated a cemetery for merchant seamen approximately 100–250 yards (91–229 m) from the hospital property. Based on city municipal records, historians estimate that the cemetery was in use from 1885 to 1912. As part of the "Trails Forever" initiative, the Parks Conservancy, the National Park Service, and the Presidio Trust partnered to build a walking trail along the south side of the site featuring interpretive signage about its history.
  The Presidio was the center for defense of the Pacific coast during World War II. The infamous order to intern Japanese-Americans, including citizens, was signed at the Presidio. Until its closure in 1995, the Presidio was the longest continuously operated military installation in the United States.
caption: Battery Chamberlin
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