San Francisco the time. San Francisco became a consolidated city-county in 1856. San Francisco's status as the West Coast's largest city peaked between 1870 and 1900, when around 25% of California's population resided in the city proper. After three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. In World War II, San Francisco was a major port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. It then became the birthplace of the United Nations in 1945. After the war, the confluence of returning
LGBT culture in San Francisco gay bar owners in 1962 as a response to continued police harassment and closing of gay bars (including the Tay-Bush Inn raid), and continued until 1995. San Francisco became linked with the LGBT community in the media as a result of a June 1964 "Life" article, "Gay San Francisco," which stated that San Francisco was the "gay capital of America." The Society for Individual Rights (SIR), founded in San Francisco in 1964, published the magazine "Vector" and became within two years the largest homophile organization in the United States. SIR focused on community building, public identity and legal and social