During the Mexican–American War, and after the Texas annexation, Polk turned his attention to California, hoping to acquire the territory from Mexico before any European nation.

[5] The name, somewhat humorous, arises because the street runs over an old stream at the bottom of a gently sloped valley.

Polk Gulch was San Francisco's main gay neighborhood from the 1950s until the early 1980s,[5] although around 1970 many gays began to move to The Castro (formally Eureka Valley) and SOMA because many large Victorian houses were available for low rent or could be purchased with low down payments[citation needed].

On New Year's Day 1965, police raided a gay fundraising party for the newly founded Council on Religion and the Homosexual in California Hall at 625 Polk Street, an incident that, according to some, marked the beginning of a more formally organized gay rights movement in San Francisco.

[9] The service was temporarily abandoned in the early 1940s before being reinstated during World War II, but finally replaced by buses in 1945.

[14] American silent psychological drama film Greed is written and directed by Erich von Stroheim and based on this book.