Glossary
The words you’ll hear around Pacifica — places, history, weather and local ways, explained
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Coast & Weather
- Fog
- The summer marine layer that gives Pacifica light drizzle and fog drip, and hid San Francisco Bay from early sailors.
Events
- Rancho Days
- The mid-September festival of early California history at the Sanchez Adobe.
- Rockaway Beach Tree Lighting
- The Chamber of Commerce’s holiday evening at Rockaway Beach, on the first Sunday of December.
History & People
- Jean Fassler
- Pacifica’s first mayor, elected when the city incorporated in 1957 and one of the first women mayors in California.
- Ocean Shore Railroad
- The 1905–1920 line meant to connect San Francisco and Santa Cruz, whose motto was “It reaches the Beaches!”
- Portola Expedition
- The 1769 Spanish overland party that camped in the San Pedro Valley and became the first Europeans to see San Francisco Bay.
- Pruristac and Timigtac
- The two Ohlone villages of Pacifica, on San Pedro Creek and Calera Creek.
- Rockaway Quarry
- The Calera limestone quarry above Rockaway Beach that supplied the Presidio, the Ocean Shore Railroad and post-earthquake San Francisco.
- Sanchez Adobe
- The 1846 Mexican-era adobe on San Pedro Creek, a county museum and California Historical Landmark.
Local Life & Customs
- Pacifica Taco Bell
- The beachfront Taco Bell reputed to be the world’s most scenic, built in the late 1960s as an A&W.
Nature & Wildlife
- San Francisco garter snake
- An endangered snake of the Pacifica ponds and wetlands, whose prey is the California red-legged frog.
- San Pedro Creek
- The steelhead stream that flows from Sweeney Ridge through the Linda Mar valley to the sea.
Places
- Devil’s Slide
- The steep coastal promontory south of Linda Mar, now bypassed by the Tom Lantos Tunnels.
- Linda Mar
- The southern valley neighborhood at the mouth of San Pedro Creek, home of the surfers’ beach and the Sanchez Adobe.
- Milagra Ridge
- A 275-acre open space between Pacifica and Daly City with old military batteries and rare butterflies.
- Mori Point
- A 110-acre Golden Gate National Recreation Area bluff and wetland, once a speakeasy inn and the cliff in Harold and Maude.
- Pacifica
- A coastal city of about 38,600 people in San Mateo County, between San Francisco and Half Moon Bay, incorporated in 1957 from nine separate communities.
- Pacifica Pier
- The quarter-mile fishing pier, officially the Rev. Herschell Harkins Memorial Pacifica Pier, built in 1973.
- Pacifica State Beach
- The three-quarter-mile crescent beach at Linda Mar, a beginner surfing favorite with over a million visitors a year.
- Pedro Point
- The southwest headland and neighborhood, with Shelter Cove, at the start of Pedro Mountain Road.
- Rockaway Beach
- A curved embayment and shopping-and-dining strip in south Pacifica, beside the old Rockaway Quarry.
- Sharp Park
- The north-central Pacifica district around the oceanfront golf course, once known as Salada Beach.
- Sharp Park Golf Course
- A public oceanside course designed by Alister MacKenzie, opened in 1932, owned by the city of San Francisco.
- Sweeney Ridge
- A 1,200-acre ridge park between Pacifica and San Bruno, site of the San Francisco Bay Discovery Site.