[BurritoAlPastor]

San Francisco’s “Main Street” is in no way a major artery, however. Market Street served that function.

Here’s an 1853 map https://rumsey.geogarage.com/maps/g3463000.html in which today’s Main Street is only a block long. The map calls it Front St, although there’s another Front St nearby which kept the name – perhaps it was renamed Main to disambiguate once the streets connected?

[GeneralMayhem]

That map also showcases another example of this - Townsend Street is named after one James Townsend, who was the alcalde [1] in 1848, not for its location at the end of town. (Geary, Leavenworth, and Bryant are also named for pre-statehood alcaldes, but their names are less amusingly coincidental.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcalde

[dietr1ch]

Ooohh, so 1st St made sense back then. I always wondered why SF needed like a -4th St.

[iraqmtpizza]

I worked on Main for years and nobody mentioned this urban legend. while the street is not long, I would not put it past bureaucrats to name a random street Main