Cow Hollow

Cow Hollow

Originally a small valley of pastures and dairies in the post-Gold Rush years, COW HOLLOW takes its name from the days when cows rather than shoppers grazed the land between Russian Hill and the Presidio, and women would bring their loads to one of the only sources of freshwater in town which came to be known as Washerwoman’s Lagoon. Problems with open sewage, and complaints from neighbors up on prestigious Pacific Heights about the smell of the cows saw the area transformed in the 1950s, when enterprising merchants decided its old clapboard dwellings along Union Street had possibilities.