This is part of a series of posts in partnership with the American Indian Cultural District to promote and document intangible and tangible American Indian cultural heritage in San Francisco.
Text compiled by Kerri Young, map data by Jason MacCannell and map build by Mila Yglesias and Clancy Wilmott of the Association of American Geographers
Since its formation in 2020, San Francisco Heritage has proudly supported the placemaking and cultural preservation efforts of The American Indian Cultural District (AICD) in Yelamu (San Francisco).
Located on Ramaytush Ohlone land in today’s Mission District, the cultural district corridor holds deep historical and contemporary significance for the American Indian community. It encompasses a concentration of historical events, cultural resources, community programming, services, and gathering spaces that remain vital to Native Americans in the San Francisco Bay Area.
A brand new digital map, created with geolocation data compiled by AICD historical consultant Jason MacCannell, is now available as an interactive tool for exploring both tangible and intangible aspects of American Indian heritage within the cultural district and—as map data is added—across Yelamu.
The map will grow to include multiple layers, such as Native American organizations, culturally significant sites, and other points of interest. These layers incorporate a range of data—from building addresses to historic photographs—allowing users to engage with existing physical sites while also providing a framework for documenting intangible heritage, including stories, traditions, and cultural practices throughout Yelamu.
Below, we take a closer look at a few of the sites highlighted on the map, and invite you to explore this dynamic digital resource as more sites are added. Ultimately, we hope that this resource highlights not only historic sites in the AICD, but the living cultural heritage of the Ramaytush Ohlone and the broader intertribal American Indian community. It emphasizes that these communities are not merely part of the past, but continue to play an active, integral role in the cultural life of San Francisco today.
The American Indian Center (3053 16th Street, 225-229 Valencia Street)
San Francisco’s Mission District was home to the first and the second American Indian Center (AIC), located at 3053 16th Street and 225-229 Valencia Street respectively and in operation from 1957 to 1988. Over the years, these buildings—the original featuring a hardwood dance floor, meeting rooms, and a restaurant—provided welcoming spaces where Native people from many Nations gathered to provide resources, create cultural-based programming, share their culture with one another, and build a strong network.
Exterior of original American Indian Center, October 29, 1969.
CBS5 KPIX-TV. Accessed via DIVA, San Francisco State University.
Second American Indian Center, February 20, 1983.
Max Kirkeberg Collection, San Francisco State University.
A mysterious fire burned down the AIC on October 29, 1969, which played a significant role in the Alcatraz Movement and launched a new era of Native American rights and advocacy. (According to AICD, prior to this fire it was estimated that the Indian Center served thirty thousand Native people.) Activists, who sought to improve conditions for recently urbanized American Indians, pushed to create a new center and Native American school on Alcatraz Island, which remained open until June of 1971. From 1969 through 1970, the AIC also held a temporary space at 3489 Mission Street; it was from this location that activists coordinated supplies to and from Alcatraz.
While different community members have run each incarnation of the Center, all had the same goals: to provide a space, resources, and programming for American Indians in the San Francisco Bay Area. The American Indian Cultural Center (AICC), for many years existing as a virtual incarnation of the center, is establishing its first physical space on Mission Street in 2026 where it will continue the important work of the earlier centers.
For more history, memories, photos, and ephemera on the American Indian Center(s), read our collaborative post with the AICD.
Warren’s Slaughterhouse Bar (3079 16th Street)
Formerly located at 3079 16th Street, a few doors down from the original American Indian Center, was Klamath-owned Warren’s Slaughterhouse Bar. In operation from 1960-?, Warren’s was once the Bay Area’s most famous “Indian Bar,” where community members would gather to learn about potential housing, jobs, and inter-tribal politics.
The stern visage of Geronimo, the proud countenance of Rain in the Face, the indominitable face of Joseph, and the stoic expression of Captain Jack.”
—SF Examiner description of oil paintings that hung next to the pool table inside Warren’s Bar in the 1960s
Prominent Native activist Richard Oakes (Mohawk) got his first job at Warren’s, where he tended the bar after he chose to step away as a leader of the 1969 Occupation of Alcatraz. It was at Warren’s in 1970 where he suffered a serious injury when a pool cue was smashed over his head during a fight.
By many accounts, Warren’s could be a rough place, where fights and drunkenness were commonplace. The Examiner, in a 1960 series on American Indians in San Francisco, derisively observed that the bar “does a great deal to perpetuate the myth of the “drunken Indian.” Some Native community members also lamented that the bar existed in such proximity to the Indian Center, where Native youth were an important group served.
Still, author Kent Blansett described the importance of gathering spaces like Warren’s in his book Journey to Freedom: Richard Oakes, Alcatraz, and the Red Power Movement:
These bars often cut across class lines, as the necessity arose to interact with other Natives who possessed a shared history and a common background…For newcomers to the city, bars were places where they met or located people from their community and established networks of friends. These networks were crucial for sustaining and building an Intertribal community, in that they imparted survival skills to new migrants within the urban environment. Political organizers in the community took advantage of these networks for lobbying purposes.
Original Native American Health Center/Friendship House (56 Julian Avenue)
Originally located in a Queen Anne Victorian at 818 Steiner in Alamo Square, Friendship House Association of American Indians moved to the Mission District in 1982 in what is today the heart of the American Indian Cultural District. Along with the Native American Health Center (NAHC) and Indian Education Program, from its home at 56 Julian Avenue Friendship House represents some of the integral American Indian services that operate within the district: it is the largest substance abuse prevention, treatment and recovery program of its kind serving Native American women, men, youth and families.
Now led by Martin Waukazoo (Lakota), a visionary leader of the NAHC, Friendship House was co-founded, developed, and built by his late wife Helen Devore Waukazoo (Navajo), who until her passing in 2021 led the agency for nearly 60 years. Like Martin, Helen was one of thousands of American Indians to be relocated to San Francisco under the Federal Termination Act, where she was promised housing and services she never received. Inspired by their experiences, Helen and four other Native women founded the Friendship House out of 818 Steiner in 1963.
Helen always envisioned a sacred physical place that Native people could call “home.” Today, Friendship House, the NAHC, and Native and community supporters are embarking on an exciting new development at the heart of the AICD called the Village SF, a Native-led wellness, cultural, and economic center. Located next to Friendship House’s current headquarters on Julian Avenue, this project is more than a building: it is a commitment to revitalizing and supporting Native American communities in the heart of San Francisco, and will serve as an important hub for Native access and healing for San Francisco and beyond.
American Indian Historical Society (1451 Masonic Avenue)
Just outside cultural district corridor in Ashbury Heights is the former headquarters of the American Indian Historical Society, also called Chautauqua House, which in 2026 will become the first landmark in San Francisco designated for its association with the American Indian community.
Former home of the American Indian Historical Society, Ashbury Heights
SF Heritage photo.
Cover of The Indian Historian, Winter 1970
American Indian Digital History Project.
Founded in 1964 by Rupert and Jeanette Costo (Cahuilla, Eastern Cherokee) and entirely volunteer-run, this organization led the earliest efforts to correct the Native American history curriculum in schools and supported significant efforts to increase representation in print media, including through its establishment of The Indian Historian Press, an “all-Indian educational publishing house” that published ten books a year. Chautauqua House also hosted a physical art gallery to showcase artwork from significant California Indian artists such as Frank Day, as well as a small museum. Through its exhibitions and publications, the AIHS sought to inform and promote mutual understanding between American Indians and non-Natives.
For a brief history on the AIHS and this site, read our collaborative post with AICD.
The Longest Walk (Alcatraz Island)
Masthead for Treaty Council News, published by the International Indian Treaty Council, for the February 1978 issue featuring The Longest Walk. A hand-drawn map shows the planned walking route from San Francisco to Washington, D.C. Courtesy of the American Indian Cultural District.
The Longest Walk, a five-month pilgrimage of American Indian activists to Washington, D.C. started on February 11, 1978 on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco. Over five months, walkers marched 3,200-miles to Washington, D.C., raising national awareness of Indigenous struggles and delivering a powerful message to Congress: Native rights and homelands are not negotiable.
We go to Washington to protest U.S. military and corporate power which threatens us with termination, starvation, and prosecution…we will be heard and we will win.”
—International Indian Treaty Council News, February 1978
In addition to the walk’s call for sovereignty and the protest against the multiple pieces of anti-Indian legislation being considered by Congress—particularly concerning Indian land, fishing, and mineral rights—the walk was also an opportunity to educate non-Indians about Indian cultural and spiritual life. Their efforts led to the defeat of several anti-Indian bills and helped secure passage of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (SJR 102). The Longest Walk remains a symbol of Indigenous resilience, activism, and the ongoing fight for justice.
We look forward to completing a collaborative post on the Longest Walk in 2026.
KPOO’s Voices of the Native Nations (1329 Divisadero)
2026 marks over 50 years of “Voices of the Native Nations (formerly Red Voices)” a tri-monthly radio show on San Francisco-based KPOO-FM. Mary Jean Robertson (Cherokee), 77, has been its host for most of that run, where she has covered all manner of news about Native life across the Bay Area and the nation. From supporting the pathbreaking American Indian Arts Workshop out of the Mission Cultural Center to hosting KPOO fundraisers at the American Indian Center, Robertson’s own life and work is deeply intertwined with urban American Indian life in and around what is today the AICD.
Today, Robertson also serves on AICD’s Leadership Council, and was instrumental in creating what became AICD’s cultural district corridor.
We documented Mary Jean’s story this year in this collaborative post with AICD.
