Gold miners needed somewhere to stash and send cash, so Wells Fargo opened in this location in 1852. Today this storefront museum covers gold rush–era innovations, including the Pony Express, transcontinental telegrams and statewide stagecoaches. Wells Fargo was the world's largest stagecoach operator c 1866, and you can climb aboard a preserved stagecoach to hear pioneer-trail stories while kids ride a free mechanical pony. Notwithstanding the blatant PR for Wells Fargo, the exhibits are well researched, fascinating and free.
Wells Fargo History Museum
Contact
Address
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
4.6 MILES
When Frederick Law Olmsted, architect of New York's Central Park, gazed in 1865 upon the plot of land San Francisco Mayor Frank McCoppin wanted to turn…
2.95 MILES
Was it the fall of 1966 or the winter of ’67? As the Haight saying goes, if you can remember the Summer of Love, you probably weren’t here. The fog was…
0.28 MILES
If you look close today at the clinker-brick buildings lining these narrow backstreets, past the temple balconies jutting out over bakeries, acupuncture…
0.37 MILES
No one could have predicted the cultural force City Lights would become when it first opened in 1953. Sure, it had a proletarian ethos suggested by its…
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
0.54 MILES
When the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art expanded in 2016, it was a mind-boggling feat that nearly tripled the institution's size to accommodate a…
0.65 MILES
If you want to really see San Francisco, head to Coit Tower, a 1933 art deco beaut designed by Arthur Brown, Jr. and Henry Howard that sits high up on…
4.3 MILES
Few cities boast a structure so iconic as the Golden Gate Bridge, commemorated in everything from films like The Maltese Falcon to not one but two emojis…
2.68 MILES
Welcome to San Francisco's sunny side, the land of street ball and Mayan-pyramid playgrounds, semiprofessional tanning and taco picnics. Although the…
Nearby attractions
0.07 MILES
Enjoy knockout vistas of the Financial District and Transamerica Pyramid from atop a slender art deco skyscraper. Take the elevator to the 15th floor.
2. Transamerica Pyramid & Redwood Park
0.12 MILES
The defining feature of San Francisco's skyline is this 1972 pyramid, built atop a whaling ship abandoned in the gold rush. A half-acre redwood grove…
3. Diego Rivera's Allegory of California Fresco
0.16 MILES
Hidden inside San Francisco's Stock Exchange tower is a priceless treasure: Diego Rivera's 1930–31 Allegory of California fresco. Spanning a two-story…
0.16 MILES
Back when the red lights of Commercial St could be seen from the waterfront, this strip provided many provocative answers to the age-old question: what do…
0.17 MILES
You can see all the way to China from the Hilton's 3rd floor inside this cultural center, which hosts exhibits ranging from showcases of contemporary…
6. Old St Mary's Cathedral & Square
0.17 MILES
California's first cathedral was started in 1853 by an Irish entrepreneur determined to give wayward San Francisco some religion – despite the cathedral's…
0.18 MILES
Chinatown's unofficial living room is named after John B Montgomery's sloop, which staked the US claim on San Francisco in 1846. SF's first city hall…
0.21 MILES
'If, as they say, God spanked the town/For being over-frisky/Why did He burn His churches down/And spare Hotaling's whiskey?' This saloon-goers' retort…