Category: Cows

Home Invasion at the Wilson Dairy on Gennessee Street

Sunnyside History1 Comment
OpenSFHistory.org

By Amy O’Hair

​In February 1906 at the Wilson farmhouse on Gennessee Street in Sunnyside, a woman suffered a brutal attack by a robber on a Friday afternoon. The attacker got away by running into the thick grove of eucalyptus trees nearby. The whole neighborhood was involved in the hunt for the man. The news reports about the incident tell us a lot about Sunnyside in that year – including something of its largely untold dairy history, as well as the lay of the land. The house where it happened still stands today, at the SE corner of Gennessee St and Joost Ave (where it recently sold for almost $2m).

The house at 418 Gennessee (now 440 Gennessee), SF Chronicle, 11 Feb 1906, p21.
440 Gennessee Street, 2016. Photo: Amy O’Hair.
"Defenseless Woman is Beaten Brutally by Robber" SF Chronicle, 11 Feb 1906, p.21.
“Defenseless Woman is Beaten Brutally by Robber” SF Chronicle, 11 Feb 1906, p.21.

Continue reading “Home Invasion at the Wilson Dairy on Gennessee Street” →

The Ballad of Ellen Furey

Sunnyside History3 Comments

By Amy O’Hair

The death of a dairy woman near Sunnyside, run down by a speeding Southern Pacific train as she took her cows across the tracks to better pasture, captured the attention and the hearts of San Franciscans in 1896. A reporter showed that to keep to their schedule, SP drivers were required to break the law daily by exceeding the City speed limit—often speeding to four times the limit on the downhill patch of pastoral land where Ellen Furey grazed her cows. One young girl witnessed the collision, and spoke bravely before the press and the coroner, revealing the hegemonic company’s lies.

News article, SF Call 28 Jan 1896. This is not a photo of Ellen Furey; I chose it because this dairy woman is clearly fond of her cow, and Ellen died saving hers from death. Photo credit link at end.
News article, SF Call 28 Jan 1896. This is not a photo of Ellen Furey; I chose it because this dairy woman is clearly fond of her cow, and Ellen died saving hers from death. Photo credit at end.

Continue reading “The Ballad of Ellen Furey” →

Cows in Sunnyside?

Sunnyside History3 Comments
OpenSFHistory.org

Before our hills were crowded with houses, there were cows grazing on them. There were big dairy farms near Sunnyside, such as Rock Ranch and Smart’s New York Dairy, as well as many small producers. It was a rough and ready urban business then, serving the needs of a growing city–but subjected to little health regulation (read a good summary here).

Even into the 1920s Sunnyside residents on the north side were irked by the damage done to their gardens from cows that had wandered over the hill from a farm near Glen Canyon. But the surprising thing is that many early residents kept a cow or two of their own in the backyard, even breeding and selling them on.

Woman milking cow, Excelsior District, early 20thC. From San Francisco's Excelsior District by Walter G. Jebe Sr.
Woman milking cow, Excelsior District, late 19thC. From San Francisco’s Excelsior District by Walter G. Jebe Sr.

Continue reading “Cows in Sunnyside?” →