August 1, 2008
Grandpa’s archives: San Francisco Chronicle aerial photo ca. 1949
Just plain cool, San Francisco history blog » [13] commentsMy mother called a few days ago, opening the conversation with a breathless “I think I’ve found something that might interest you!”
She was right.
Her sister had recently gone through some papers belonging to my late grandfather Elmer Plett, a sober, hard-working dairy farmer who spent the majority of his adult life in the central valley town of Turlock.
Among piles of receipts and newspaper clippings my aunt discovered a mysterious item bearing the handwritten label “San Francisco picture, 1949”. Sure enough, nestled between protective cardboard sheets was a large, glossy, black and white aerial photograph of San Francisco.
The shot is spectacular, taken on an unusually clear winter day. The angle is unusual too, looking almost precisely north towards Mount Shasta — and according to the story of how the photo came to be taken (see below), that view of the distant volcano is what prompted the photographer to take to the air.
What we’re interested in, though, is the city in the foreground — captured in all its hat-wearing, freeway-building, pre-jet-age post-war glory. Take a look:

click image to view at full size
Beautiful, no?
But my question, of course, is what on earth prompted Grandpa hold on to such a thing? What was his interest in San Francisco? Prior to 1949 he’d made the journey to the big city only once — and that was to visit the ’39 World’s Fair on Treasure Island.
Had he sent away for this photo ten years later to commemorate that event, to summon the memories of crossing the brand new Bay Bridge with Grandma in the old Model A, to recall the Technicolor excitement of witnessing the entire world condensed onto a couple of pancake-flat acres floating in the middle of the Bay?
I’ll never know. Mom has no idea, and neither do her siblings … and dammit, it’s too late to ask Grandpa. So although the possible explanations are limitless, that’s the one I’m choosing. Arbitrary, perhaps — but satisfying.
For your edification — and because Grandpa would have thought that this whole thing was totally cool — I’ve re-typed the sheet of paper (printed by the Chronicle) explaining the photograph. Enjoy …
From 12,000 Feet Up
On a clear day in January, 1949, Chronicle photographer Barney Peterson climbed into a small airplane and circled skyward over the San Francisco Peninsula. At 12,000 feet, his camera lens reached out 250 miles to catch this remarkable shot of snow-covered Mount Shasta (alt. 14, 162). The peak can be seen in the extreme background just a little to the right of center.
Just to the left of Shasta are China Mountain, Cory Peak and Scott Peak, averaging over 8500 feet. To the left of this group is Russian Peak, 8183 feet.
In the foreground may be seen the Spring Valley Lakes and the peninsula communities of Burlingame, Millbrae, San Bruno and South San Francisco. At the extreme right foreground is the San Francisco Municipal Airport. To the left of the airport, in the open space between Millbrae and South San Francisco, is a section of the new Bayshore freeway.
The San Bruno hills are just beyond South San Francisco and to their extreme right is Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. Above Hunters Point may be seen a section of the Bay Bridge and Treasure Island. Above the Bay Bridge in the photograph are Point Richmond and Point San Pablo.
On the extreme left side of the picture is San Francisco’s famous beach, Seal Rock, the Cliff House, the Golden Gate and the Golden Gate Bridge (left center). Short of the Golden Gate Bridge may be seen the street patterns of the Richmond and Sunset districts, divided by Golden Gate Park.
Just north of North Beach sits Alcatraz and beyond Alcatraz is Angel Island. The thin peninsula behind Angel Island is the Tiburon-Belvedere peninsula forming the east shore of Richardson Bay.
The clarity of this photograph was made possible by rare arctic winds which swept the skies of their usual haze. Photographer Peterson used a 5"x7" aerial camera equipped with a 15" Wollensak telephoto lens. The exposure was 1/225 second at an aperture of F/8, using a minus blue filter and Super XX Aero Graphic film.
— Photo Copyright, 1949, by the Chronicle Publishing Company
13 responses to “Grandpa’s archives: San Francisco Chronicle aerial photo ca. 1949”
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Pingback from Aerial photo of 1949 San Francisco
August 2, 2008 at 11:24 am[…] This photo was taken in 1949 by San Francisco Chronicle photographer Barney Peterson. It was discovered by the Sparkletack blogger Richard Miller’s aunt among his grandfather’s archives. The photo is copyright the Chronicle, but I hope they won’t mind my posting this small version; the image links to the Sparkletack post. […]
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August 12, 2008 at 12:23 am[…] on Sparkletack is a post about an amazing photo of the Bay Area… it’s an aerial photo taken in 1949 […]
August 11, 2008 at 11:16 pm
This is an amazing photo – we’ve just been at Shasta and that is a looong drive from San Francisco. Great find!
August 13, 2008 at 12:13 pm
What a fantastic find! So the love of San Francisco is genetic apparently.
September 12, 2008 at 7:06 am
Great photo! Fantastic!
October 11, 2008 at 9:01 am
Beautiful photograph! A great find.
May 10, 2009 at 12:15 pm
In 1954 while on active duty as a US Coast Guard Photographers mate,this negative was brought to our photo lab in Alameda, we were ordered to make eight 4′ X 8′ reproductions on matte paper that we had to special order from Eastman Kodak!
Enlarging the picture was a challenge for our laboratory equipment! It was quite a dance as we “held back” and “burned in” certain sections. The paper was too large to fit into our regular trays, so we wet it first and folded it carefully and then by hand swabbed the picture! Afterwards we took them out on the lawn and washed all the chemicals off with a hose and hung them out in the sun to dry!
One of the pictures was specially framed and mounted in the SF Airport terminal!
I subsequently switched services and retired from the Army at the Presidio of SF. I was quite surprised when a friend sent me this picture and article. Fantastic! My partner in the lab was PH1 Jim Holman! He was the lead and I was the grunt! Thanks for posting this neat picture from long ago, woke up a lot of memories!
Frosty aye aye
May 12, 2009 at 11:20 am
@Frosty: Okay, so this is exactly why I post this kind of thing, to draw people out of the woodwork who’ve actually participated in the history of San Francisco.
So cool!
Thanks SO MUCH for contributing your recollections of working with this photo. I can just picture you guys out on the lawn with the hose … absolutely priceless.
September 15, 2010 at 3:17 am
I think there was one of the pictures was specially framed and mounted in the SF Airport.
April 9, 2012 at 6:25 am
Hi
I am from the United Kingdom, my mother was from San Francisco,and my Grand Mother was from the USA.
I have the same Photo and and typed information sheet hanging in our hall, very interesting.
April 23, 2012 at 1:38 pm
I have the exact photograph I got from a free sale in Orinda, CA. It has the excerpt from the The Chronicle Publishing Company dated 1949 on the back
February 28, 2013 at 11:30 am
I too have this picture and the paper that tells the same information. It was originally something my great grandmother had and has passed down. I was so happy to find this information on here as well. Im interested if it’s one of the 8 reproductions that were made or if along the way there have been more copies produced. Either way, so awesome!!!
January 12, 2016 at 8:00 pm
My dad had a print of this picture in his ham radio room when I was a kid in the late 50’s. I always enjoyed staring at it. Recently someone at work gave me the same print. I went onto google earth and studied it for some time, and came to the conclusion that it is NOT Mt. Shasta in the distance. Based on the altitude and the field of view in the shot, Mt. Shasta would be just out of frame to the right. The 3 visible peaks are Black Butte, Thompson and Caribou, which is the one right of center. The latter 2 are in the Trinity Alps, and Black Butte is overlapping, and in front of them. Directly below the middle peak, out of the snow, is Mt. St. Helena. I was a bit disappointed to realize it wasn’t Shasta after all these years, but it is still a great photo, and to be able to see almost 250 miles in a picture like this is wonderful. Thanks for posting about this picture. If anyone has links to getting a larger print off the negative, I would love to get one, as the version I have is a glossy halftone photo. Still nice, but I bet there is more information to be had in the negative.
If anyone is interested, I can send them the .kml files for Google Earth so you can do your own investigation.