South San Francisco is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States, located on the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area. The city is colloquially known as “South City”. The population was 66,105 at the 2020 census.

Prior to European exploration, the northern San Francisco peninsula was inhabited by the Ramaytush, a linguistic sub-group of the Ohlone people. Their village of Urebure on San Bruno Creek was visited by the Gaspar de Portolà expedition in 1769; remains of long-term (5,000+ years) inhabitancy and seasonal encampments have been examined at the Siplichiquin and Buckeye shell-mounds on San Bruno Mountain. Charcoal-sampling indicates these 3,000+ year outmoded sites may have been actively occupied to the lead in the Spanish colonial period (late 1700s). The delta of Colma Creek was formerly an important dwelling for the waterfowl known to be hunted by the Ramaytush in historic times, and archaeologic sites have been recorded near the creek. The City point toward also recognizes the existing remains of a village (CA-SMA-299) along El Camino Real.

The Place which is now South San Francisco was ration of Rancho Buri Buri, a large Mexican land come to to the Sanchez family dating to 1827. In 1853 Charles Lux and a thing partner, Alfred Edmondson, purchased 1,700 acres (7 km) in the north of Rancho Buri Buri. Around that time, the 12-Mile House – one of the Peninsula Mile Houses – was built as a End on the San Jose Stage road. Lux bought out Edmonson’s immersion in 1856 and founded the town of Baden (now a neighborhood of South San Francisco) near the 12-Mile House. In 1855 Lux bought option 1,464 acres (6 km) of Rancho Buri Buri estate and became a assistant of fellow San Francisco butcher and buccaneer Henry Miller, forming the final of Miller & Lux.

The city of South San Francisco was conceived as an industrial suburb and was promoted by representatives of the Beef Trust, a bureau including some of the country’s largest meat packing firms. A city ambition was put refer in 1888 by Gustavus Franklin Swift, founder of the Swift & Company meat packing firm. The intend called for multipart individual meat-packing companies behind a shared stockyard, as skillfully as a residential area for employees. Swift proposed the publish South San Francisco based on South Chicago and South Omaha, where the Swift company already had plants.