OpenSFHistory, a program of Western Neighborhoods Project (WNP), was launched in 2014 following the donation of a massive archive of historical San Francisco images from a lifelong photo collector and photographer active from the 1960s through the early 2000s. Preferring to remain anonymous, you’ll see them cited as the “Private Collector” while using this website. 

This generous Private Collector has spent decades amassing their collection from anywhere and everywhere: finding treasures in antique stores and on Ebay, saving materials that were thrown away, acquiring personal snapshots from residents, and making copy negatives and prints from other sources in his personal darkroom to amass a profoundly comprehensive record of San Francisco in one place. Their collection presents materials created by the San Francisco Department of Public Works, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority, the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department that can also be found at the San Francisco Public Library’s History Center, the Golden Gate National Recreation Area’s Park Archives and Records Center, the Society of California Pioneers, the San Francisco MTA Photo Archive. And they’ve worked closely with WNP to inventory, rehouse, and digitize an expansive array of original prints, 35mm slides, glass negatives, stereoviews, film negatives (nitrate/acetate), postcards, lantern slides, and copy negatives that date from the 1850s through the 1970s. 

To make this archive accessible to the public, WNP launched OpenSFHistory.org built with intention by co-founder David Gallagher. This website seeks to remedy systemic issues we, as community historians, often encounter while researching in existing archives. All images can easily be downloaded and used for free, with high resolution files made available for a small fee that offsets administration costs. Large “Contact” buttons on every photo page encourage people to provide instant feedback. San Franciscans know their city best and allowing folks out in the neighborhoods to reach us quickly with observations is vital to the strength of this crowdsourced community resource. The majority of images are mapped so you can navigate the city’s past by place or by a traditional key term search. And, in 2018, we debuted a custom interface created by Gallagher and Dave Lucas that allows you to interact with panoramic photos, zooming in on details and traversing the full length of the image as if by magic.

OpenSFHistory.org debuted in November 2014 with the upload of 1,170 images. Since that time, the archive has grown to include other private collections like those of west side entrepreneur Marilyn Blaisdell, transit expert Emiliano Echeverria, historic preservationist Judith Lynch, and theater expert Jack Tillmany. The OpenSFHistory Program has also evolved to include partnerships with local organizations, like Guardians of the City and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area Park Archives, which don’t have ways to easily digitize and host their collections online. If you have historical materials to add to this archive–a box of old family photos, a collection of found photography, visual project records, or your own work that is over 25 years old–then you have our attention. Email opensfhistory@outsidelands.org to start a conversation about how we can help you preserve and share your collection(s). 

All of these combine to form an open-armed overview of San Francisco (and sometimes, kind of randomly, other places), allowing us to visit homes, businesses, and institutions that have been demolished, like everyone’s favorite: Playland-at-the-Beach; experience pivotal events like the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire and the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition; and meet San Franciscans who left an indelible imprint on this city, like Dianne Feinstein, Willie Mayes, John McLaren, and Adolph Sutro, as well as the anonymous mothers, streetcar operators, store clerks, housewives, and everyone in between who shaped this city even if they aren’t remembered for the work. But the archive is a long way from accurately representing the full spectrum of San Francisco, and we have a lot of work to do to close these gaps. If you’re interested in helping ensure this website makes everyone feel at home in this history, email us: opensfhistory@outsidelands.org.   

OpenSFHistory is an open source resource built by San Franciscans for San Francisco; it’s forever under construction (the Winchester Mystery House of online repositories!), and we are always asking: what else can this program do? In 2020, we added a downloadable poster feature to every image page and encouraged quarantined San Franciscans to print and post them up on telephone poles around the city. This effectively turned all of San Francisco into a living museum, creating then-and-now experiences in situ with the places these photos depicted. It was fun, family-friendly, and could be done 6ft-apart so it was a safe, communal activity during an isolating worldwide pandemic. 

Alongside a website redesign by Daniel Lucas of the Sunset District nonprofit Problem Library in 2025, the program was relaunched and expanded again to include the work of select contemporary photographers, beginning with Yameen and Christine Huhn. Since contemporary photographers are capturing San Francisco as we see it today, this builds an archive for tomorrow–preserving the present while creating future history. It also builds on photographer Greg Gaar’s concert photography and street photography sets, which were added to the website in 2017.

If being human boils down to our ability to be perceived, then there is no easier way to understand the past–to fathom history and feel in communion with those who came before us–than by looking at it. Although commercial photography is well-represented on this website, the most compelling images come from amateur photographers who provide a rare glimpse into what it was actually like to live in San Francisco day-to-day. And now these photographs and the people in them are given a second life through the OpenSFHistory program, which is used by a vast array of people–visual artists, writers, historians, environmental scientists, students, homeowners undertaking renovation projects, the National Park Service, and city agencies like the San Francisco Planning Department and the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department tasked with documenting the city’s history and evolving the city’s landscape for future generations.

OpenSFHistory–a resource that has digitized, rehoused, and made accessible online thousands of images (and counting!) and serves hundreds of thousands of users–has been largely created and managed by volunteers. They include:

• WNP co-founders David Gallagher and Woody LaBounty
• Former and present WNP Board Members David Chang, Anisha Gupta, Nicole Meldahl, Chelsea Sellin, and Kyrie Whitsett
• Message minders Judy Hitzeman, John A. Martini, and Art Siegle
• Jamie Borschuk
• Jo Brownold
• Barbara Cannella
• Emiliano Echeverria
• John Freeman
• Carol Gould
• Eoin Hobden
• Laura Isaeff
• Jenna Jorgensen
• Paul Judge
• Wendy King
• Gabrielle Kojder
• Bill Kostura
• Andy Lee
• Judi Leff
• Dave Lucas
• Pierre Maris
• Tim McIntosh
• Beth McLaughlin
• Greer Montgomery
• Steven Pitzenbarger
• Linda Pomerantz
• Jef Poskanzer
• Alex Prime
• Tom Purcell
• Jackie Rosas
• Grace Sargent
• Eric Schaefer
• Art Siegel
• James R. Smith
• Leslie Woodhouse
• Christine Yeager
• …and so many people who send us comments that help us make this history better (keep them coming!)

Just imagine what we can do with your support. If you’d like to get involved, you can:

1. Make a financial contribution to ensure the nonprofit that powers this program survives. 
2. Send us feedback to help improve the website or add information to individual images.
3. Donate historical images to keep building our archive.  

This collective effort has been made possible by major support from:

• The Bland Family Foundation
• San Francisco Heritage
• San Francisco Office of Economic and Workforce Development
• Sunset Heights Association of Responsible People

Thank you, San Francisco and those who love this archive from elsewhere, for all you do to keep our nonprofit going and OpenSFHistory alive!