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Golden Gate Park

Quick answer

Golden Gate Park covers 1,017 acres of what were San Francisco sand dunes, a district once called the Outside Lands. Surveying began in 1870 under William Hammond Hall, who held the ground with barley, then lupine, then trees. John McLaren ran the park from 1890 until his death in 1943. Bison have been kept there since 1891.

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Full transcript

Sand

Everything you are standing on was sand. In the 1860s this was the Outside Lands, shifting dunes that most people considered worthless. Frederick Law Olmsted, who had designed Central Park, was asked what to do with it and in 1865 came back with a plan built around drought-tolerant native planting, because he did not think an eastern-style park could be watered into existence out here. The city rejected it and asked for a Central Park anyway. So in 1870 a 24-year-old civil engineer named William Hammond Hall went out to survey the dunes. He camped a month, and one of the horses spilled its feed — soaked barley — onto bare sand. A week later Hall found it sprouted, holding several yards of loose dune in green. That accident became the method. Barley first, to hold the sand through the winter. Then lupine, to hold it through the summer. Then trees, into ground the earlier plants had already stabilized. Sixty thousand trees were in the ground by 1875 — mostly blue gum, Monterey pine and Monterey cypress — and the dunes stayed put.

Uncle John

In 1890 a Scottish gardener named John McLaren took over, and he stayed 53 years — he died in 1943, aged 96, still superintendent, in the lodge inside the park, having outlasted every mayor who tried to retire him. McLaren had rules. No signs, no statues if he could help it, and no keep off the grass. He hid the ones he was ordered to install behind shrubs, and some of them are still hard to find. He wanted a park that looked like countryside rather than a garden, and the result is that Golden Gate Park does not feel designed, which is the hardest thing to design. It covers a little over a thousand acres, which makes it about twenty percent larger than Central Park.

The Bison

Near the western end, along John F. Kennedy Drive, there is a paddock with American bison in it. They are not a novelty act. The first bison came to the park in 1891, when the species had been hunted to the edge of extinction — fewer than a thousand animals left on the continent. The park bred them, and more than a hundred calves have been born here. The rest of the park will take you days. The Japanese Tea Garden is the oldest public Japanese garden in the United States. The Conservatory of Flowers is a Victorian glasshouse that opened in 1879, and the Japanese Tea Garden dates from 1894. Stow Lake has a waterfall and rowing boats. And on Sundays the main road closes to cars, which is when the park stops belonging to traffic and starts belonging to the city.

The checkable facts

  • The park covers 1,017 acres, against Central Park's 843
  • William Hammond Hall prepared the survey and topographic map of the site in 1870
  • Olmsted's 1865 plan used native species suited to the dry climate and was rejected in favour of a Central Park-style design
  • About 60,000 trees had been planted by 1875, mostly blue gum eucalyptus, Monterey pine and Monterey cypress

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Frequently asked

Is it really bigger than Central Park?
Yes, by about a fifth. The San Francisco park measures 1,017 acres against Central Park's 843, and it is longer and narrower: roughly three miles east to west by half a mile north to south. It is also the third most visited city park in the United States, at around 24 million visits a year.
Why are there bison here?
Superintendent John McLaren brought the first animals in 1891, when fewer than a thousand wild bison were left in North America and city parks were breeding them as insurance against extinction. The herd moved to its present paddock near the western end in 1899. Hundreds of calves have been born on the site since.
Did Frederick Law Olmsted design it?
No. Olmsted was asked for advice and argued that windswept dunes could not carry an eastern-style landscape without irrigation the city did not have; he proposed something drier and more native, and was overruled. The plan that was built came from William Hammond Hall, a surveyor in his twenties.
Is John F. Kennedy Drive closed to cars?
Partly. Sunday closures began in 1967 and Saturdays were added later. In April 2022 the Board of Supervisors made the eastern stretch permanently car-free and renamed it the JFK Promenade; the western end still carries traffic. Cycling, skating and walking now dominate the closed section every day of the week.
What else is worth seeing?
Three things stand out. The oldest public Japanese garden in the United States sits beside the Music Concourse, laid out for the Midwinter Fair of 1894. The Conservatory of Flowers, a wood-and-glass Victorian glasshouse, dates from 1879. The de Young Museum and the California Academy of Sciences face each other across the concourse.

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