Yerba Buena, California

Presidios were military fortifications, established at the same time as the missions, responsible for protecting them, controlling the native population, and defending Spanish and later Mexican territory against foreign incursions.

[4] The uninhabited northeastern area of San Francisco was called El Paraje de Yerba Buena (The Place of the Good Herb), derived from the Spanish geographical term paraje, meaning "place", "camp", or "stopping point" and yerba buena, the Spanish name for plants in the mint family, used in Alta California for Clinopodium douglasii, which grew abundantly in this area.

The earliest one was the Presidio anchorage, located just inside the Golden Gate, within a mile to the east of Punta del Cantil Blanco (what was later called Fort Point).

[8] With the enactment of the Mexican Secularization Act of 1833, the missions were made to divest themselves of their extensive landholdings and emancipate the indigenous people under their control.

[5][9][10] In 1835, William A. Richardson, a naturalized Mexican citizen of English birth, erected a homestead near the boat anchorage of Yerba Buena Cove.

[7] Together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, which retained the name Yerba Buena.

It operated as a wholesale store, selling goods exported from Fort Vancouver such as salmon, lumber, and British manufactures in exchange for hides and tallow.

[11] On July 7, 1846, US Navy Commodore John D. Sloat, in the Battle of Yerba Buena, claimed Alta California for the United States during the Mexican–American War, and US Navy Captain John Berrien Montgomery and US Marine Second Lieutenant Henry Bulls Watson of the USS Portsmouth arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later by raising the American flag over the town plaza, which is now Portsmouth Square in honor of the ship.

On July 31, 1846, Yerba Buena doubled in population when about 240 Mormon migrants from the East coast arrived on the ship Brooklyn, led by Sam Brannan.

[13] The city and the rest of Alta California officially became a United States military territory in 1848 by the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican–American War.

[14] A Yerba Buena Avenue runs through the St. Francis Wood and Westwood Highlands neighborhoods on the southwestern side of San Francisco.