Hassler Health Farm
Between 1927 and the 1970s, tuberculosis patients from San Francisco were sent to the Peninsula foothills to breathe. The Hassler Health Farm -- originally called the San Francisco Health Farm -- was a sanatorium owned by the City of San Francisco, located not in the city but in the hills above Redwood City, where the air was clean and the climate mild enough for the outdoor rest cures that were the primary treatment for TB before antibiotics.
The Open-Air Cure
Before streptomycin became available in the 1940s, the standard treatment for tuberculosis was rest, nutrition, and fresh air. Sanatoriums were typically located in rural or mountainous areas where patients could spend their days on open porches, breathing air believed to promote healing. The Hassler Health Farm's hilltop location provided exactly these conditions: elevation, clean air, and distance from the congested city where the disease spread most easily. The farm was renamed after Dr. William Hassler, who served as San Francisco's public health officer.
A City's Outpost
The unusual arrangement -- a San Francisco-owned facility in San Mateo County -- reflected the pragmatic approach of early 20th-century public health. San Francisco needed a sanatorium, and its own geography offered few suitable sites. The Peninsula foothills provided the elevation and climate required, even though it meant sending patients 30 miles from home. The facility operated for roughly five decades, serving Bay Area TB patients through the sanatorium era and into the antibiotic age that made such facilities increasingly unnecessary.
From the Air
Hassler Health Farm's former site is at 37.476°N, 122.289°W in the hills west of Redwood City. The area is now largely open space. Nearest airports: San Carlos (KSQL) 3 nm northeast, Half Moon Bay (KHAF) 7 nm northwest.