Portsmouth Square Park

Portsmouth Square is the site where San Francisco truly began. Long before it became the heart of the local Chinese community, this patch of land served as the central plaza for the Mexican settlement of Yerba Buena. In July eighteen forty-six, Captain John Berrien Montgomery of the USS Portsmouth marched his men to this very spot to raise the American flag, effectively claiming the territory for the United States during the Mexican-American War. The square now bears the name of his ship, marking the transition from a sleepy coastal village to the gateway of a new American state.