The Presidio Within The Presidio
Historical Archaeology In a NHL
By Leo Barker
Reprinted from CRM
Published by The National Park Service, No. 9 1997

For years San Francisco has celebrated its birthday on June 29 inside the walls of the officers' Club at the Presidio of San Francisco. Believed to be the last remnant of the Spanish presidio or fort built over 220 years ago, the Club has always been an icon of San Francisco's history. Visitors have paused to reflect on that history while peering at the eroded adobe wall visible through a tiny window in the Club's Moraga Hall. But in all that time, few guests have realized that the history of this site's earliest days lay just below their feet.

El Presidio de San Francisco [El Presidio] was the northernmost outpost of the Spanish Empire in North America It was established under orders of Captain Juan Bautista de Anza on July 26, 1776, by Jose Joaquin Moraga with about 200 soldiers, settlers, and their families. El Presidio was as much a community as a foil, with families of mixed indigenous Mexican, African, and Spanish descent from throughout the northern fron6er of New Spain (present day Mexico). As a strategic military settlement, it eventually governed and provided security from the Sonoma/ Mendocino frontier to the Monterey Bay, and from fortifications at the Golden Gate Straits to the wild hinterlands of the Central Valley, including seven Franciscan Missions and two civil settlements, all before 1946.

El Presidio was built as a quadrangle about 85 yards on a side. Surrounded by a palisade the complex was built by a squad of 20 sailors and two carpenters who focussed their energy on three key structures: the commandant's quarters, a warehouse for provisions, and a chapel. This was the extent of the complex. Settlers and their families were left to build their own homes, which are referred to in the record as chozas (huts I of jacal [branch and mud I or palisado [upright poles or timbers] construction with azotea [flat roofs) with zacate [straw] coverings.

Designed to defend Spain's territory, the Presidio community struggled to fulfill its role while also facing constant challenges presented by the environment. Historical documents suggest that El Presidio was in an almost constant state of disrepair, reconstruction and collapse. By 1792, El Presidio was described as a quadrangle of palisade, adobe, and stone buildings on the eastern side. The construction and layout of El Presidio remains enigmatic after this date.

When the United States seized Alta California in 1846, much of El Presidio lay in ruins. U.S. troops used intact adobe buildings as a headquarters and barracks from the 1850s until the 1906 earthquake. In fact, El Presidio's central plaza remained the main parade ground until the Post was redesigned in the late 1890s. The landscape of the Spanish colonial period remains today in the parking area demarked by Pershing Square, Moraga Avenue and the Officers Club, and the southern half of the Funston Avenue Officers Quarters.

The presidio of San Francisco was originally designated a National Historic Landmark on June 13, 1962. At that time, the property was identified through a thematic study of sites associated with Spanish colonial exploration and settlement. It was secondarily recognized for its long military occupation by the United States Army after 1846. The only historic resource identified in 1962 was the Officers' Club. which was reputed to contain adobe fabric from its original use as the Spanish commandant's quarters during the 18th century.

Public perception of the Presidio NHL continued to evolve through (lie 1970s. and with each new study more contribu6ng historic properties were identified on this 1,480-acre military reservation. The number of significant buildings and structures rose from one in 1962, to 277 in 1976, to 400 in 1981, and most recently reached 662 or more sites in 1992. During much of this time, the value of El Presidio was forgotten and became secondary to a growing interest in the post- 1846 history of the U.S. Army Presidio.

Beginning with the 1992 re-study of the Presidio NHL conducted through the Western Regional Office of the National Register Programs, historic archaeological resources had their first opportunity to be recognized as contributing elements of the Presidio district. The 1992 re-study of the Presidio NHL included a predictive model for historical archaeological sites that would contribute to the values of the Landmark,

A predictive sites model was chosen for the following reasons:

1. The presidio has a complex history of physical change that masked much of its archaeological remains, impeding archaeological site identification by pedestrian survey
2. Similar to other NHLs with archaeological components, little funding existed to conduct either remote sensing or excavations to identify and clarify the integrity of these resources;
3. Substantial primary historical documentation existed to analyze, locate, and map key areas where archaeological sites and features would occur, and
4. Previous historic archaeological studies on similar military sites provide testable patterns of land use and archaeological feature locations that could be incorporated into the Presidio's predictive model.

The resulting predictive model was incorporated into the General management Plan Amendment for the Presidio within Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and was, significantly, adopted by die U.S. Army and the Corps of Engineers (COE). They continued to conduct major land disturbing projects through the period of Army-to-NPS transition uid will continue to do so is hazardous material remediation continues for several years to come. Both the Corps of Engineers and the NPS use this model to make decisions about project monitoring, test excavations, and special needs in identified archaeological zones.

The use of the predictive model paid off substantially in June 1993, when Barb Voss and Vance Bente of Woodward Clyde Consultants located stone foundations from the Spanish colonial El Presidio while monitoring the removal of a fuel oil storage tank behind a row of 1860s Officers' Quarters. Although die monitoring was originally designed to watch for archaeological remains associated with the Officers' Quarters, the discovery and the next two years of monitoring waterline construction, sewer line repairs, and specially focussed excavations arranged through the Army and the Corps of Engineers resulted in major contributions to our knowledge of this Spanish colonial site. In 1995, test excavations directed by park archaeologists Leo Barker and Martin Mayer uncovered additional subsurface features on the southern side of the site, including discovery of collapsed adobe walls under an 1880 officers quarters.

Partnering has been a major method of accomplishing many of the potentially costly goals of researching and developing El Presidio During the transition of the military reservation to NPS stewardship, the COE, Army, and the NPS pooled resources and contracted with Woodward Clyde Consultants to test assumptions about the layout of the Presidio site using ground penetrating radar, mid ground truthing through hand and machine excavation.

Cabrillo College Field School

Since 1995, the Golden Gate National Recreation Area had embarked on a long-range archaeological and historical research project on El Presidio. It includes an annual archaeological field school funded through the Golden Gate National Park Association, and conducted through the Archaeological Technology Program of Cabrillo College in Aptos, California. 'Me field school, directed jointly between Robert Edwards and Charr Simpson-Smith of Cabrillo College, and Leo Barker, is currently examining one of El Presidio's numerous chapel sites.

The school was selected because it is the only certification program in California which produces archaeological technicians proficient in detailed stratigraphic excavation techniques, and incorporates a public education element into its field work. While achieving park goals regarding archaeological resource identification, conservation, and interpretation, educational goals set in the Presidio General Management Plan are also being met. Visitors can see, feel, and reflect on the European origins of San Francisco and much of the settlement of central California.

The growing archaeological program also includes contributions from Golden Gate staff, the National Americorps program, San Francisco Conservation Corps, Boy Scouts of America and interested volunteers. A historic community reconstruction project has begun with history students from the University of San Francisco, which is computerizing the genealogy of El Presidio's Spanish and Mexican period occupants. They have Begun to research the Russian, English, American, and Peruvian companies and manifests of trade which will facilitate archaeological work and help build a more complete social and economic history of the site and region.Anthropology students from the University of California at Berkeley will begin an intensive survey this summer to identify "outlier" sites reflecting the growth of El Presidio outside its Initial quadrangle in the early 1800s. San Francisco State University will also be conducting remote sensing in die form of ground penetrating radar, magnetometry, and resistivity surveys of both El Presidio and the outlying The resulting synergy is positive, strong, and growing.

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