At San Francisco’s various tourist haunts — Fisherman’s Wharf, Pier 39, the usual suspects — San Francisco-branded ballcaps, hoodies, and T-shirts abound.
Many of them bear a glaring error: Below a graphic of the Golden Gate Bridge or the state bear or a cable car or the State Route 1 road sign or whatever, much of the tourist-y city swag has a confusingly inaccurate phrase: “San Francisco, Est. 1975.”
Now, the exact year that San Francisco became San Francisco is up for debate: The widely-accepted founding year is 1776, when Catholic Spanish colonizers planted their first mission (and the Presidio) within what would become the city limits. Some experts — and some Frisco-themed paraphernalia — argue that the city was established in 1850, when California was granted statehood. Even if that’s not right, it makes sense.
The year 1975, though, is not right. Nor does it make much sense.
Many theories have been posited online to explain the T-shirts, including that the ‘70s was a boom time for the Wharf as a tourist destination, or that somehow the classic-rock band Journey had something to do with it.
The real answer is much simpler, though less thrilling: The longtime Pier 39 tourist merch hawker SF City Wear, which makes the shirts (and owns multiple stores around the wharf), was founded in 1975.
Sofiia Serhienko, the 25-year-old merchandising manager at SF City Wear, told me that designers had put “Est. 1975” on its wares when the shop first opened — and it just stuck.
“A lot of people [ask about it], because they think maybe it’s somehow connected to San Francisco or Golden Gate or something,” Serhienko told me. It makes sense that people ask: The store is one of the primary places to get San Francisco-themed wares at one of the city’s main tourist traps, so there’s a lot of confusingly-branded merch floating around.
To make it more confusing, other items sold by SF City Wear have other semi-random years listed: Take this shirt, which just says “San Francisco 1846” (perhaps because it’s the year that American forces claimed San Francisco from Mexico during the Mexican-American War?). Or these Route 1 shirts, which reads “San Francisco Est. 1903” (we have no idea, and neither did Serhienko).
Serhienko wasn’t too worried about any discrepancies. After all, nothing really means anything in the world of city-themed apparel.
“A lot of sweaters — if you look in the websites of Zara or H&M — fifty percent of their sweaters say, ‘Oh, 1970 or 1850 or this and that. Some random number, because it’s the sporty style. It’s, like, ultra-retro vibes. They always have some kind of number on there,” she said.
She’s not wrong: Zara currently sells a San Francisco sweater with the year 1980 listed on it.
Global fashion manufacturing follows trends; in this case, preppy, heritage-y sweatshirts that have years on them for greater authenticity, whether or not it drives those of us who seek meaning in life nuts.
Thankfully, if the anachronism bugs you that much, SF City Wear also sells sweaters and T-shirts that just say “San Francisco” without any other factual embellishments on it. They’re just as cute.
