Potrero Hill Historic Maps

Unfinished History

1859 USGS Coastal Survey Map showing Potrero Hill, Mission Bay (and Mission Rock out in the water), and the eastern part of the Mission District when there were two horse racing tracks occupying what is today all residential. Note the "rope walk" at shore middle left (see photo below).

Map: courtesy David Rumsey

1861 Wackenruder Map, showing Potrero Hill excerpt. Note the small black diagonal line indicating the "rope walk" at shore middle left (see photo below)

Map: courtesy David Rumsey

1869 Salt Marsh Tidelands auction map, showing disposition of various parcels before the imminent sale of still submerged tidelands. The Tubbs Cordage Rope Walk is the larger diagonal crossing Third Street at center right.

Map: courtesy David Rumsey

1873 Bancroft Map of San Francisco, Potrero Hill and surroundings

Map: courtesy David Rumsey

These massive ropes were made at the Tubbs Cordage Company, which is visible as a small diagonal line on the first three maps above, south of Potrero Hill in today's Dogpatch neighborhood, along the shoreline.

Photo: San Francisco Maritime National Historical Museum

Early image of the Tubbs rope walk, a 1,000-foot long building in which workers walked back and forth to assemble thick ropes for sailing ships in the 19th century.

Photo: Shaping San Francisco

1938 aerial photo of the Tubbs Cordage works.

Photo: San Francico History Center, SF Public Library, and David Rumsey

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