San Francisco State University

San Francisco State University occupies one hundred forty-one acres near the shores of Lake Merced. Founded in eighteen ninety-nine as the San Francisco State Normal School, the institution began with a mission to train local teachers in a rented building on Powell Street. The original campus was destroyed during the nineteen oh six earthquake and fire, which forced the school to relocate to the Western Addition before it eventually settled at its current southwestern location in nineteen fifty-three.