Golden Gate Natl Cemetery & SSF (#0955)

The north boundary of the cemetery is the city of South San Francisco, location of the famous “SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO THE INDUSTRIAL CITY” sign. The sign is readily visible from US 101 when traveling from the airport (SFO) into San Francisco. The sign was created in 1929 to boost the image of the city of SSF as the industrial area for San Francisco and reflected what was once true. Up through WWII, SSF was the home of steel, meat packers, ship builders, and other major industries; it’s main economy now is high tech and bio tech, plus service industry for SFO. Many travelers seeing the sign assume that it is some sort of welcome to SF, but the borders of SSF do not even touch the borders of SF.

Some things I had never known turned up in the Wikipedia article. The letters are actually concrete and, so that they will look uniform on an uneven hillside, they vary in size from 48 to 65 feet in height. The sign is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_San_Francisco_Hillside_Sign