Treasure Island Museum

About this museum

San Francisco Bay holds many secrets, but few locations carry quite the layered history of Treasure Island - the artificial island built in the late 1930s to host the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition and later transformed into a naval air station that operated for decades before its closure. The Treasure Island Museum tells this story with the island itself as the most compelling exhibit: a place literally manufactured from San Francisco Bay mud, shaped by New Deal ambition, and now in the midst of yet another transformation into a new residential and commercial community.The museum is small but purposeful, with collections focused on the three defining chapters of the island's modern history: the World's Fair of 1939, which drew millions of visitors to marvel at Pacific Rim cultures and the engineering feats that had recently produced the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges; the naval air station that occupied the island from World War II through 1997; and the island's current reinvention. Archival photographs, artifacts, and interpretive exhibits make a strong case that Treasure Island's history is a concentrated version of San Francisco's own - always restless, always building, always becoming something new.Admission is free, and the museum's hours are generous: Monday through Thursday from 9AM to 5PM, Friday from 9AM to 9PM, and Sunday from 9AM to 9PM as well, with Saturday hours beginning at noon. Getting there requires crossing the Bay Bridge and taking the Treasure Island exit - a journey that is itself part of the experience, offering views of the Bay and the San Francisco skyline that most visitors don't associate with the city. For current programming and event listings, visit treasureislandmuseum.org. For anyone interested in the engineering, military, and civic history embedded in the geography of the Bay Area, the Treasure Island Museum is a genuinely rewarding detour.