The Presidio Trust together with the National Park Service, invites the public to a two-day commemoration of the Presidio’s founding as a Spanish Army post, Pasados del Presidio, June 28-29. The free event honors the heritage of early Californian cultures—Native American, Spanish and Mexican—and the founding of El Presidio de San Francisco in 1776.

Prior to the arrival of Spanish colonists, indigenous tribes of Ohlone people called the Presidio home, with archeological evidence for native villages dating back to 740 A.D. In 1776 the Juan Bautista de Anza Expedition from Sonora and Sinaloa (in modern Mexico) arrived with 191 colonists under the Spanish crown, many of whom were children, and established El Presidio de San Francisco and Mission Dolores. In 1835, the descendants of these and other colonists established the Mexican pueblo of Yerba Buena, which gave rise to a new American city called San Francisco.