We preserve, interpret, and share the diverse history and culture of San Francisco’s west side.
How do we bring you this history? Great question.
WNP shares stories about people and places by hosting illustrated talks, panel discussions, history walks, pub crawls, trivia nights, and happy hours; producing exhibitions, articles, videos, and a podcast; recording oral histories; maintaining a library, archive, and artifact collection; and partnering with local artists, businesses, nonprofits, and other nice people on collaborative projects.
In doing this work, we’ve been lucky to garner some press coverage.
Since 1999, we’ve been a group of history-loving friends who enjoy exploring things we’re curious about in the neighborhoods and sharing what we learn with our local community. You can read about how we began as remembered by our co-founder, Woody LaBounty. Our staff is supported by a Board of Directors.
We’re able to do what we do thanks in large part to individual contributions, supplemented by grants, collaborations with city agencies and local schools, and generous volunteers who give us their time and expertise.
Can’t believe you aren’t already a member and now feel compelled to make a donation? AMAZING.
Over the years we have taken on a broad range of projects that pushed us to evolve.
But those projects have also created some branding confusion. People often ask, “Are you affiliated with the Outside Lands music festival in Golden Gate Park?” No, but Another Planet Entertainment got the name from us and we do have a presence at the festival most years. People say, “Oooooh, you’re the group that runs FoundSF.org!” No, but it does feature our photographs and articles.
It’s no surprise things get a bit muddled, so in 2024 we launched one central hub–wnpsf.org–that connects you with our main programs: Outside Lands, your home for west side history; OpenSFHistory, a city-wide archive of historical San Francisco images; and Gary Stark’s Cliff House Project, which is focused on the Cliff House and its environs.
Outside Lands
WNP brings you friendly neighborhood history from San Francisco’s “Outside Lands,” a term that dates back to the Outside Lands Act of 1866, which formally brought the western half of the peninsula within the city’s legal boundaries. Using the Outside Lands Map of 1868 as a guide, we define the “western neighborhoods” as (almost) everything west of Divisadero Street and Twin Peaks to the Pacific Ocean, from the Presidio of San Francisco down to Daly City.
OpenSFHistory
WNP launched the OpenSFHistory program in 2014 to digitize historical images of San Francisco that reach beyond the boundaries of the western neighborhoods, and make them accessible online. Beginning with the donation of an immense photography archive from one private collector, the program has since evolved to include other private collections and also supports institutions like Guardians of the City and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area’s Park Archives and Records Center without the means to easily digitize and host their own collections online. Information about each image available online is crowdsourced from thousands of volunteer hours, and you can download every single one for free.
Gary Stark’s Cliff House Project
There are few west side landmarks more iconic than the Cliff House Restaurant. Since 2020, WNP has been honored to steward Gary Stark’s cliffhouseproject.com–a comprehensive website investigating and preserving the history of the Cliff House and its environs.
Gary Stark began cliffhouseproject.com to share his love of the Victorian-era Cliff House by making photographs and ephemera from his collection accessible online. In the process, other private collectors were encouraged to do the same and joined Gary by sharing their curiosity and expertise. Together, they’ve created a friendly home for this history that eventually extended beyond the many versions of the Cliff House to include nearby landmarks and businesses. Gary continues to manage the website in his retirement while WNP picks up the tab for domain fees and other boring administrative tasks to ensure it’s online for many years to come.