Despite its spectacular view of the Golden Gate Bridge, China Beach is sometimes thought of as a hidden gem of San Francisco. The name of the tiny cove — said to be a place where Chinese fisherman would frequent during Gold Rush days — has a background filled with historic irony.

The person most tied to the area located at the north end of what is now the tony Sea Cliff neighborhood is James D. Phelan, arguably one of the region’s most powerful politicians during the early 1900s. Phelan was mayor of San Francisco at the turn of the century and later became a U.S. senator who campaigned on an anti-Asian platform. During a bid for re-election to the Senate, his slogan was “Keep California White.”

None of that was quickly evident during a recent visit to The Chronicle archives that turned up some photo negatives with images that transported us to what seems a simpler time. Snapshots ranged from delightful to breathtaking to ceremonial, and news clips monitored the area’s development over the years.

The plot of coastal sand has one of the best views on the West Coast. There’s mention of it in The Chronicle’s archives going as far back as 1906. But it didn’t seem to start getting real news coverage until the late 1920s, when a developer came up with plans to subdivide the beach and land around it into six private parcels.

Phelan, however, wanted the city to purchase and preserve the land. He called it “a perfectly formed beach, protected against wind or tide, and a favored place for bathing. There is no beach so beautiful or so well protected on the bay of San Francisco.”

A bond initiative added to the November 1929 ballot sought to provide funds to buy China Beach so people could access that secluded part of the coast. An editorial by The Chronicle called it costly bunk, adding it would for various reasons be too expensive to buy the beach and the land. The proposition was defeated.

When Phelan died in 1930, he left $50,000 in his will for purchasing the beach. The city and state partnered to come up with the additional money needed to buy the land.

In 1934, the State Parks Commission voted unanimously to rename the cove to James D. Phelan State Beach, in honor of his years of service to California and because his donation made the purchase of the beach possible.

The state transferred the beach to the federal government in 1976, and it became part of the Golden Gate National Recreational Area, bringing back the name China Beach.

Bill Van Niekerken is the library director of The San Francisco Chronicle, where he has worked since 1985. In his weekly column, From the Archive, he explores the depths of The Chronicle’s vast photography archive in search of interesting historical tales related to the city by the bay.