Marine Exchange Point Lobos Lookout Station

The structure you are looking at, tucked away among the trees at Lands End, is the Point Lobos Marine Exchange Lookout Station. Completed in nineteen twenty-seven, this distinctive octagonal building once served as the eyes of San Francisco’s maritime commerce. In an era before advanced radar, lookouts stationed here used powerful telescopes to identify incoming ships as far out as the Farallon Islands. Once a vessel was spotted, the information was relayed to the city's downtown docks, allowing merchants, taxi drivers, and hotel operators to prepare for the arrival of cargo and passengers. The building's eight-sided shape was specifically chosen to provide a near three-hundred-sixty-degree view of the Pacific Ocean and the entrance to the Golden Gate.