San Francisco International began in 1927 as Mills Field Municipal Airport, on pastureland leased from the banking Mills family beside the bay. Early years were humble, but United Air Lines predecessors and Pan American's transpacific Clippers soon put the airport on the map.
The city bought the land outright in 1930. Renamed San Francisco Airport in 1931 and granted the International title after the Second World War, it grew on landfill pushed steadily into San Francisco Bay, opening its Central Terminal in 1954 as the jet age approached.
United made San Francisco one of its most important bases, building a vast maintenance center and, over time, its premier transpacific gateway. The dramatic International Terminal, spanning the entry roadway, opened in 2000, followed by the AirTrain people mover and BART rail connection in 2003.
Terminal 2 was reborn in 2011 as an acclaimed boutique-style facility, and Harvey Milk Terminal 1, honoring the civil rights pioneer, opened in phases from 2019. Through it all, the airport's signature challenge endured: two pairs of intersecting parallel runways, built for another era, that force arrival cutbacks whenever the famous fog rolls through the San Bruno gap.