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Low Rider, Mission Street
The Mission District is usually thought of as having some of the most flat and uninteresting terrain in the city. However prior to the 1850s the Mission was filled with crags, mounds, hills, caves, depressions, bogs, and streams. Since it was also the sunniest district in San Francisco it became a fertile farmland, worked by Scandinavian and German farmers. It was only a few miles from downtown but the Mission was considered a world away because it was separated from the rest of San Francisco by an insect-plagued swamp, now the South of Market area.

In 1851 the city built a very long, forty-foot wide wooden plank road to connect the Mission's farms with the rest of the city. With access opened, the area was soon built up and inhabited by a flood of Irish and Italian immigrants. Later the Mission became home to the Hispanic communities that give the district its flavor today. As for that old wooden plank road, it was paved over and today Mission Street is the longest street in the city.
[ MAP L-12 ]


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