Arena Gate & Clock??

Horses and the founding of golden gate park        Posted on May 11, 2011

courtesy of : http://fromthethicket.com/page/14/

* photograph from the SFPL historic photograph collection

A horse actually played a key role in the founding of Golden Gate Park.  The story goes like this:

In the early 1870s, faced with the daunting task of establishing a vegetative cover on the sand dunes that had been set aside for the park, the young engineer in charge, William Hammond Hall, tried some techniques for dune stabilization that had been developed in Europe.  The method involved covering the dunes with planting mat and then seeding a combination of grasses, shrubs and trees.  The expectation was that the grasses would take hold in the planting mat and their roots would help keep the sand in place, forming a medium in which shrubs and trees would germinate and grow.  It was a method that essentially tried to replicate the processes of natural plant succession.  In the first experiments on the dunes of Golden Gate Park, Hall used species that had worked in France, a combination of maritime pines (Pinus nigra) and yellow broom (Cytisus spp.),  but these species failed to thrive.  So Hall and his colleagues tried adding some native lupines, which they noticed grew well locally.  The lupine proved more successful in the San Francisco coastal environment, but the pines and broom grew poorly and were soon choked out by the lupine and drifting sand.

At this point a horse saved the day.  Hall and some of his men were camped on the dunes and noticed that a horse, corralled on the sand, was scattering its feed of whole, wet barley.  By chance it rained and the scattered barley sprouted very readily, quickly covering the patch of sand with a green carpet.

This gave Hall the idea of adding barley to the seed mix they were using.  It worked to stabilize the dunes through the summer and the following winter, allowing the larger plants more time to establish themselves.  The dune stabilization was off and running!  In December 1872 and January 1873, Hall’s crew scattered a mix of barley, lupine, maritime pine and Albizia over an area of 100 acres.  And they established a nursery to give some trees a head start before planting them out in the stabilized dunes.

The rest is history!  Thanks to that horse!       (for complete story see site personally listed above.)

(this information is from Building San Francisco’s Parks, 1850-1930, by Terence Young (pp. 84-87)

Late 19th Century The Richmond District looking towards Lone Mountain

courtesy of : http://www.artandarchitecture-sf.com/tag/san-francisco-history 

*  Photograph from a Private Collection

Golden Gate Park construction with the Sunset District in the back – 1900 

courtesy of : http://www.artandarchitecture-sf.com/tag/san-francisco-history     

* Photo courtesy of Greg Gaar 

courtesy of : http://www.artandarchitecture-sf.com/tag/san-francisco-history 

* Photo Courtesy of SFPL 

Fleishhacker Pool, like the San Francisco Zoo was a gift to San Francisco by Herbert Fleishhacker. The idea, conceived by John McLaren, designer of Golden Gate Park, was to help bring athletic competitions to San Francisco.

The first event held at the pool was on April 22, 1925 and featured a freestyle swimmer named Johnny Weissmuller representing the Illinois Athletic Club. Weissmuller appeared several times at Fleishhacker and was a real crowd pleaser.

The 6, 500,000 gallon, filtered seawater filled pool, opened to the general public on May 1, 1925.  It cost 25 cents for adults and 15 cents for kids under 12.  For that you had use of the the dressing rooms with showers, and the loan of a bathing suit and towel that were sterilized between uses.

The pool had twelve lifeguards and a number of life rowboats.  It also boasted a tree-sheltered beach, a cafeteria, and even child care if you needed it.

The pool, while it existed was the largest in the world.  In 1943 U.S. troops used it to train for amphibious beach assaults.

Slowly slipping into disrepair the pool suffered its final blow when an outflow pipe collapsed in a 1971 storm, the city was unable to foot the bill for repairs.  The pool closed in June of 1971, and the concrete was broken up and the hole filled with dirt.  The land was granted to the zoo with the intention of adding parking.

The pool house however, remained, it was hoped it would become a restaurant.  Sadly it simply became a shelter for vagrants and feral cats.  The pool house caught fire and burned to the ground on December 1, 2012 leaving San Francisco with but a remnant of a glorious past.

courtesy of : http://www.artandarchitecture-sf.com/tag/san-francisco-history 

* Photo Courtesy of SFPL