The mining exchange formed during the Gold Rush as a market for shares in mining endeavors, but the Bush Street building didn’t come along until 1923.

It also served as a general stock exchange for a while, but in recent years mostly went to seed, and the preserved elements have been repurposed as the lobby of a 19-story high-rise, a development that took decades. Architect Joseph Heller called it “the single most complex permitting I’ve ever done.”

Yes, even the streetlights are landmarks in San Francisco. Starting in 1918, the city installed over 100 distinctive Golden Triangle lights along and around Market Street, hailed at the time as technical marvels.

A 1919 edition of the Journal of Electricity praised the Golden Triangle design as “unlike many other bright illuminatory systems, not injurious to the eyes,” and also credited the “absence of the flaming, piercing, eye-straining arc so common in unscientific illumination.”

Give this to the Kinmon Gakuen Building: Of all of the landmarks in San Francisco, it’s the most recent designation, arriving on the list in 2019. The institute has served as a Japanese language school since 1911, originally founded because the children of Japanese immigrants were not allowed to attend existing schools.

San Francisco has no shortage of historic churches, and this one often ends up overshadowed (ahem) by the nearby St. Mary Of the Assumption Cathedral. But St. Mark’s is a rare example of the Romanesque style in San Francisco, and was fortunately saved in 1906 by its proximity to the firebreak at Van Ness Avenue.

This is one of the oldest unaltered homes in San Francisco, possibly dating to 1850. According to the National Register of Historic Places, which also lists the house, when first built it was part of a 160-acre estate, and the city limits did not expand to include it until four years later. It’s been moved twice, but always within the original acreage.

If you’ve ever wondered about this seemingly gravity-defying structure at the absolute edge of the Mission District, wonder no more: Built in 1916, architect Louis Christian Mullgardt had only a small 140-foot by 140-foot parcel to work with, so he designed a soaring and almost razor-thin six-story structure that housed the juvenile court and detention hall.

There are many vintage firehouses in San Francisco, but few of them make a statement as effectively as this 1898 number, the first ever built to service the Sunset District. Architect Charles R. Wilson, designer of the Windsor Hotel, cooked up its bold shingles and tower design (the tower was originally used to hang hoses).

The city sold the old firehouse in the 1960s, and these days it belongs to a Catholic publishing company, who paid $1.6 million for it.

In 1999, the San Francisco Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board—now just called the Historic Preservation Commission—called this vintage home “an essentially unaltered example of high Queen Anne style flats which survived the 1906 earthquake and fire,” singling it out for its onion dome and the fact that the building of the Twin Peaks Tunnel destroyed many similar nearby houses but spared this one.

Designed by architects at Ward & Blohme in 1918, this is one of only two stations in the city without any fire poles, being as it is a one-story set-up that’s easy to miss but a true hidden gem for those who stumble on it today. These days it’s used mostly for storage.

Originally the Doggie Diner was a chain, and there were dozens of these slightly disquieting canine connoisseurs watching over roadside eateries across the Bay Area.

The last one closed in 1986, and in perhaps the weirdest preservation saga of all time, cartoonist Bill Griffith used his surrealist comic “Zippy the Pinhead” to drive a grassroots campaign urging the city to buy this remaining doggie head, which then did happen in 2000.

The dog blew down on April Fool’s Day a year later—we’re really not making any of this up—and afterwards the city relocated it to its present median spot.

Most people have heard of the Bayview Opera House, but few realize it was one of the very first buildings that the city landmarked under the article ten of the planning code in 1968.

That year, SF singled out eight structures, the first being Mission Dolores—no surprises there. The opera house barely squeezed in under the deadline for the inaugural year, landmarked in December under the name the South San Francisco Opera House and its old address on Newcomb Avenue.

(It’s in the same location now, but goes by a Third Street designation.)

Officially registered as the Hunters Point Springs and Albion Brewery, these days most people just call the somewhat obscure waterfront building Albion Castle. Built in 1870, the then-remote location was meant to take advantage of nearby springs for brewing water. These days you can rent the place on Vrbo for $479 per night.

You don’t get a lot of Colonial Revival architecture in San Francisco, which is one reason the Planning Department singled out this circa-1932 convalescent home, praising among other things its “front door accentuated by a broken pediment, recessed tetra-style portico supported by tall slender columns,” and “symmetrically composed façade.”

Maybe more importantly, at the time this was one of the only affordable housing resources for senior women in SF.

According to the 1995 Planning Commission ordinance landmarking this circa 1934 schoolhouse, Balboa High represents the acme of the “golden age of school construction” in SF in the early 20th century. You probably didn’t realize there ever was any such thing, but the still-gorgeous Spanish Colonial style of the buildings preserves the legacy of that period.

Those initials stand for “San Francisco” and “San Mateo”—not only was the SF & SM the city’s very first electric streetcar operation, but it was the first regional light rail service too, spanning both counties—hence the southern-lying location of its offices. This historic building can be found just outside the Balboa Park BART Station.