[1] It is a membership-based organization that holds monthly speaking programs, conducts walking tours of San Francisco and publishes original research.
It owns the Barbary Coast Trail walking tour and publishes the biannual journal Argonaut.
[3] One of the purposes of the merger of the two organizations was to put together a single proposal to renovate and operate the Old San Francisco Mint as a history museum.
However, the building still needed about US$60 million in additional work, and the City of San Francisco concluded the organization was not making progress quickly enough after 11 years of work, so it ordered SFMHS to vacate the building in 2015.
[8] In October of that year, the society moved into its first museum space, at 608 Commercial Street, in San Francisco.