Editing Pacifica, California (section)

==History==
[[File:Historic American Buildings Survey Robert W. Kerrigan, Photographer Original- May 1936 VIEW FROM NORTHWEST - Francisco Sanchez Adobe, Linda Mar Boulevard and Adobe Drive, Pacifica HABS CAL,41- ,1-5.tif|thumb|upright=0.9|left|The [[Sanchez Adobe]] in Pacifica is the oldest structure in San Mateo County.]]
Before European settlers arrived, Pacifica was home to two significant [[Ohlone]] Indian villages: [[Sánchez Adobe Park#Native American prehistory|Pruristac]] located at [[San Pedro Creek]] near present-day Adobe Drive, and Timigtac on [[Calera Creek]] in the [[Rockaway Beach, California|Rockaway Beach neighborhood]].

Pacifica is the location of the oldest European encounter with the San Francisco Bay. An expedition led by [[Gaspar de Portolà]] sighted the bay by climbing the hills of Sweeney Ridge in Pacifica on November 4, 1769.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.hallman.org/pacifica/portola.html |title=Transcription |website=Hallman.org |access-date=March 19, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170525001449/http://www.hallman.org/pacifica/portola.html |archive-date=May 25, 2017 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Before then, earlier Spanish maritime explorers of the California coast [[Juan Cabrillo]] and [[Sebastian Vizcaino]] had missed the San Francisco Bay because heavy fog so frequently shrouded its entrance from the Pacific Ocean (the [[Golden Gate]]). Sighting the San Francisco Bay accelerated the Spanish colonization of Alta California because it was the only large, safe, centrally located harbor on the Alta California coast. The Spanish had known about Monterey Bay since the sixteenth century, but, unlike San Francisco Bay, it was too exposed to rough currents and winds to be used as major harbor for their trade between Asia and Mexico. In the Spanish era, Pacifica was the site of the [[San Pedro y San Pablo Asistencia|San Pedro Valley Mission Outpost]] (1786–1793) of [[Mission Dolores]]. That was dissolved when a newly independent Mexico secularized the mission system. Pacifica is also the site of the still-extant Mexican-era [[Sánchez Adobe Park|Sánchez Adobe]], built in 1846. The city is located on a part of the Mexican land grant [[Rancho San Pedro (Sanchez)|Rancho San Pedro]] given to [[Francisco Sánchez (American politician)|Francisco Sanchez]] in 1839.

[[File:Fishing village on the ocean south of San Francisco, California.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|left|[[Rockaway Beach, Pacifica, California|Rockaway Beach]] and quarry in 1938, photograph by [[Dorothea Lange]].]]

During [[World War II]], the area around the present-day Sharp Park recreational area held the [[Sharp Park Detention Station]], an [[Immigration and Naturalization Service|INS]] processing facility for Japanese Americans, Japanese nationals, and other "foreign enemies" during [[Internment of Japanese Americans|Japanese internment]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Wagner |first1=Jim |title=Local history: Pacifica's Sharp Park land once housed a war-time internment camp |url=https://www.mercurynews.com/2009/08/27/local-history-pacificas-sharp-park-land-once-housed-a-war-time-internment-camp/ |website=The Mercury News |date=August 27, 2009 |publisher=Pacifica Tribune |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210312225854/https://www.mercurynews.com/2009/08/27/local-history-pacificas-sharp-park-land-once-housed-a-war-time-internment-camp/ |access-date=March 12, 2021|archive-date=March 12, 2021 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Sharp Park Detention Station |url=https://calisphere.org/search/?q=BANC%20PIC%201998.012--PIC |website=Voices in Confinement: A Digital Archive of Japanese-American Internees |publisher=UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library |access-date=March 12, 2021}}</ref> The [[Stanford]] professor [[Yamato Ichihashi]] spent six weeks in Sharp Park. He described the facility, writing, "The ground is limited by tall iron net-fences and small in area; barracks 20' x 120' are well-built and painted outside and inside and are regularly arranged; there are 10 of these for inmates, each accommodating about 40, divided into 5 rooms for 8 persons each; if double-decked (beds), 80 can be put in."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ichihashi |first1=Yamato |title=Morning Glory, Evening Shadow: Yamato Ichihashi and His Internment Writings, 1942-1945 |date=1997 |publisher=Stanford University Press |location=Palo Alto |isbn=9780804780896 |page=152 |edition=1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aLHqHXhoPvsC |access-date=March 13, 2021}}</ref>

On February 20, 1956, the [[Hazel's Inn raid]] occurred in Sharp Park.<ref>{{cite web |title=LGBT Timeline |url=https://www.aclu.org/issues/lgbtq-rights/stonewall-50-aclu-100-legacy-fighting-justice-and-equality |publisher=ACLU |access-date=March 16, 2022}}</ref> Sheriff Earl Whitmore told the ''[[San Mateo County Times]]'' at the time, "The purpose of the raid was to let it be known that we are not going to tolerate gatherings of homosexuals in this county."<ref>{{cite web |last1=Flanagan |first1=Michael |title=Pre-Stonewall, There Was Compton's in San Francisco |url=https://www.ebar.com/arts_&_culture/culture//202587 |publisher=The Bay Area Reporter |access-date=March 16, 2022}}</ref> Ninety people were arrested that night, and the majority were San Francisco residents.

Pacifica was incorporated in 1957, relatively recently in the history of [[San Mateo County]]. Its first elected mayor was [[Jean Fassler]], one of the first women mayors in California. It was the union of nine previously separate, unincorporated communities–Fairmont, Westview, Pacific Manor (or just Manor), Sharp Park, Fairway Park, Vallemar, Rockaway Beach, Linda Mar and Pedro Point–some of which were stops on the short-lived [[Ocean Shore Railroad]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Ocean Shore Railroad |url=https://www.cityofpacifica.org/about/history/ocean_shore.asp |first1=June |last1=Langhoff |date=1996 |website=City of Pacifica, CA |access-date=April 5, 2019 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191027033835/https://www.cityofpacifica.org/about/history/ocean_shore.asp |archive-date= October 27, 2019 }}</ref> The name "Pacifica" was chosen from Thomas Barca, by vote{{Citation needed|date=April 2019}}; "Coastside" was a close runner-up{{Citation needed|date=April 2019}}. In 1960, the city seal was designed by resident Ralph Barkey, who was inspired by [[Ralph Stackpole]]'s towering "[[Pacifica (statue)|Pacifica]]" statue produced for the 1939–1940 [[Golden Gate International Exposition]] on [[Treasure Island, San Francisco|Treasure Island]] in the [[San Francisco Bay]].<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pF3U-TTJAgEC&pg=PA65 |pages=65–66 |title=Pacifica |last1=Hunter |first1=Chris |last2=Drake |first2=Bill |author3=Pacifica Historical Society |publisher=Arcadia Publishing |year=2002 |isbn=978-0738520681 |series=Images of America}}</ref>