Park History - San Francisco Recreation and Park
sfrecpark.org/wp-content/uploads/ParkHistory.pdf
GOLDEN GATE PARK
MASTER PLAN
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supervisors Stanyan, Shrader and Cole prevailed,
establishing Stanyan Street as the park’s eastern
limit, with an avenue extending to Baker Street.
Olmsted’s plan for a sheltered inland park and
promenade was cast aside for economic reasons:
the availability of cheap Outside lands and
support of speculators who had a direct financial
interest in improvements in the western section of
the city.
On April 4, 1870, the state legislature passed “An
Act to provide for the improvement of Public
Parks in the City of San Francisco.” Soon after,
the newly-formed park commission advertised
bonds to fund park improvements. Enough bonds
were sold to finance a topographical survey of
Golden Gate Park and its approach. Surveyor and
engineer William Hammond Hall won the con-
tract to survey park land, completed his report on
February 15, 1871, and in August that year was
appointed as engineer of the park.
Hall and his work crews took on the task of
transforming the sandy, sparsely vegetated 1,017
acre park tract between Stanyan Street and the
ocean into a pleasure ground which would convey
“warmth, repose, and enlivenment” to citizens.
Hall started work on the 270 acres in the eastern
end of the park, a locale suitable for features such
as a picnic ground, gardens, play and recreation
area, and the avenue of approach now known as
the Panhandle. He envisioned a woodland forest
on the 600 acres west of Strawberry Hill, but first
the extensive sand drifts had to be reclaimed with
vegetation. Experiments revealed that lupine seed
sown with fast-growing barley successfully
sheltered delicate lupine strands from harsh winds
Topographic map from the survey by William Hammond Hall. Printed in the
First Biennial Report of the San Francisco Park Commissioners, 1870-71.
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Park History
GOLDEN GATE PARK
MASTER PLAN
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and shifting dunes. Initial work completed in
1871 included grading, fencing, drainage and
irrigation work, and development of a park
nursery. The following year, 22,000 hardy and
quick growing trees were set out, park roads built,
and visitors began to arrive by the thousands
(W.H. Hall, in Report of the Park Commission-
ers, 1872).
Golden Gate Park welcomed pedestrians, ladies
and gentlemen in fine carriages, equestrians, and
hordes of bicyclists after 1880. Park use reflected
the recreational activities of all San Franciscans,
and included band concerts, floral displays,
picnicking, croquet, tennis, and racing carriages
on the speed road. Facilities arose on park land to
attract visitors, including a conservatory erected
on North Drive in 1877, an adjacent music stand
completed in 1882, and the children’s quarters
and playground, dedicated in 1888.
The new pleasure ground provided an aesthetic
balance to the harsh realities of city life. Weary
city residents could relax in the hygienic atmo-
sphere of the park, surrounded by sublime scen-
ery of trees, shrubs, gardens and picturesque
lakes. The park also fulfilled a higher purpose of
social reform. In the Gilded Age of the 1870's,
parks were seen as a tonic of nature which exerted
positive influence on the morals of the common
citizen and contributed to physical and mental
health. The concept of parks as a vehicle for
social reform continued into the next century, but
park use moved gradually from aesthetic appre-
ciation to utilitarianism.
Political corruption and chicanery tainted city
government and vexed park management in the
nineteenth century. Park Superintendent Hall
became the target of political attacks when he
resisted corrupt politicians. He resigned his post
in 1876, and for the next decade the park lan-
guished due to lack of funds. A change in city
administration in 1886 heralded the overhaul of
the Board of Park Commissioners, and the return
of William Hammond Hall’s involvement in
Golden Gate Park. Hall, then State Engineer,
examined the condition of the park’s forest and
general state of affairs. In 1886, Frederick Law
Olmsted commented on the reclamation and
progress of work in the park, stating that, while
obviously far from its finished state, the park was
“an achievement far exceeding all that I have
believed possible” (F.L. Olmsted to Board of
Park Commissioners, 1886). In 1890, John
McLaren became park superintendent and held
the post for over half a century. McLaren soon
faced the greatest challenge of his career.
In the wake of the widely acclaimed World’s
Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago in 1893,
San Francisco’s park commissioners approved
deviation from traditional park use and agreed to
host the California Midwinter International
Exposition in an undeveloped area east of newly-
constructed Stow Lake. San Francisco Chronicle
publisher Michael H. deYoung, who had served
as a vice-president of the Chicago exposition, and
banker James D. Phelan, former chairman of
California’s fair exhibit in Chicago, spearheaded
the campaign to raise funds for the fair. Promot-
ers hoped a California world’s fair would help
pull the state from the depths of a nationwide
recession and showcase San Francisco’s salubri-
ous winter climate. The California Midwinter
International Exposition opened on January 27,
1894, amid parades, bands and military salutes.
When the fair closed six months later, over two
million visitors had passed through the turnstiles,
and the fair recorded a modest profit. The 200-
acre Midwinter Fair left an enduring legacy on
Golden Gate Park. Several exposition displays
continued as park attractions, including the
Japanese Tea Garden, and the Egyptian-style
Fine Arts Building, which, filled with objets d’art
from the fair, became a permanent museum. The
fair’s Grand Court became the Music Concourse.
Other fair structures were demolished, and with
considerable effort by Superintendent John
McLaren and his crews, the bulk of the fair site
returned to parkland.
At the turn of the century, under a new city
charter, the park came under the direct jurisdic-
tion of the city government instead of the state
legislature. New additions included a park lodge,
music stand donated by Claus Spreckels, a chain
of lakes, and windmills. The growing popularity
of the horseless carriage fostered new user
conflicts and enforcement challenges for the park
police squad.
In 1906, the park served as a place of refuge for
thousands of displaced citizens in the wake of the
earthquake. Refugee tent camps sprang up
beside the park lodge and conservatory, and
surrounded the Garfield Monument and other
familiar landmarks. Barracks camps covered ball
fields and straddled the abandoned Speed Road.
A number of park structures sustained heavy
damage during the temblor: the Sweeney Obser-
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