From a cow pasture to cantatas, from a roadhouse to Rigoletto is the history of Sigmund Stern Grove in brief. Before the Forty-Niners cast their shadow across the chronicle of California, the area was part of the pioneer homestead of the Greene family. It wasn’t much then, a big gully torn out of the wasteland by the brook that still babbles there.

In 1847 one George M. Greene of the State of Maine was advised by a friend of the family who was employed in the Government Service of the excellent farming and cattle lands open to homesteaders in Northern California. Greene and his wife came across the plains from Maine and took up a homestead on land near what is now 19th Avenue and Sloat Boulevard.

Greene’s brothers took up all available land from the end of his grant, comprising 160 acres, to the Pacific Ocean. Later he increased his holdings to 185 acres. The property adjoining his on the west comprised 320 acres and was owned by his brother... - www.sfmuseum.org