Carl Nolte, the San Francisco Chronicle's "Native Son" columnist, retired June 13 at age 92 — exactly 65 years after his first day. Born in Potrero Hill, living in Bernal Heights, he covered SF's streets, history, and waterfront longer than most of the city's current residents have been alive.

On June 13, Carl Nolte walked out of the San Francisco Chronicle after exactly 65 years — hired on that date in 1961, gone on the same calendar square in 2026, at age 92. He was the paper's "Native Son" columnist, born and raised in Potrero Hill, a fourth-generation San Franciscan who made the city's streets his permanent assignment.

Nolte came up as a copy editor, moved to reporting, embedded with the U.S. Army as a war correspondent in the early 2000s, and in 2009 began the weekly "Native Son" column that became his franchise — SF history and characters told by someone who had been walking those same blocks since the 1930s. His wife, Darlene Plumtree, turns up in his columns under the name "the Sailor Girl." They live in Bernal Heights.

The column's range matched the city's texture: earthquake and fire centennials, the neighborhoods that shifted and those that held, the maritime SF most reporters ignore. He served as president of the National Liberty Ship Memorial, helped restore the SS Jeremiah O'Brien berthed at Pier 45, and sailed on her to Europe for the D-Day anniversary. In 2023, the Board of Supervisors declared October 18 "Carl Nolte Day" by Resolution No. 504-23. The Society of Professional Journalists gave him a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1986.

The goodbye column ran June 13 — the Chronicle's Sarah Feldberg reported he shared his favorite columns and characters. For anyone who has watched the O'Brien tied up at the Embarcadero, or climbed the blocks he grew up on in Potrero Hill, the retirement is the end of that particular view: the city seen from the inside, by someone who never left.