Five months later, as an eight-month-old civil war drew to a close in Chile, she landed a force of sailors and Marines to protect the United States Consulate.

She called at ports in Brazil, the Netherlands West Indies, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua during the next six months, then returned to the United States, anchoring at New York City on 29 July 1894.

[7] The year 1895 brought further overseas duty; and, in January, San Francisco crossed the Atlantic to cruise in the eastern Mediterranean Sea as political tension within the Ottoman Empire caused diplomatic uneasiness.

Another cruise to the Mediterranean, thence on to Asiatic ports, followed; and, in the fall of 1904, the protected cruiser again entered the Norfolk Navy Yard, where she was decommissioned on 31 December.

[7] In June 1908, San Francisco was ordered refitted as a minelaying vessel; and in 1910, she was rearmed with eight 5 inch (127 mm)/40 caliber guns and a capacity of 300 mines.

[7] Designated a mine planter on 19 December 1912, she remained based at Norfolk and operated in the western Atlantic and the Caribbean into 1916, when she was again ordered inactivated.

[7] With the April 1917 entry of the United States into World War I, San Francisco began laying anti-submarine nets in the Hampton Roads area.

In June, she shifted to New York, where she conducted experimental deep water minelaying operations; and, during August, she underwent overhaul at the Portsmouth Navy Yard.

In mid-September, she moved back down the coast to New London, Connecticut where she provided net laying services until ordered to Norfolk for training duty later in the fall.

[7] Remaining in reserve through the decade, CM-2 was renamed Tahoe, and then Yosemite, effective 1 January 1931, to allow the name San Francisco to be given to CA-38, then under construction.

Her name was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 8 June 1937, but she was retained at the Navy Yard until sold for scrapping to the Union Shipbuilding Company, Baltimore, Maryland on 20 April 1939.