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From the Friends of Mountain Lake Park website:
In the spring of 1776, after a 900 mile journey from what is now Mexico, Spanish Captain Juan Bautista de Anza and his soldiers came upon Mountain Lake. They were searching for a suitable location for a northern settlement and found the lake an ideal location. It offered abundant water and pasture land, grazing deer, and one of the finest harbors in the world. They broke ground half a mile from the lake and called the settlement the Presidio.
Around 1875, the designer of Golden Gate Park, William Hammond Hall, designed Mountain Lake Park. It is on the southern boundary of the Presidio of San Francisco. The park stretches from Park Presidio Boulevard on the west to 8th Avenue on the east. It is north of Lake street and south of the Presidio Golf Course.
Today this area is a 14 acre park featuring Mountain Lake, San Francisco's second largest freshwater lake. A stairway leads down to the lake where a shore platform allows observing the birds close-up. There is a nice trail through the park with a fitness course, lots of benches, picnic tables and a picnic shelter along the way. The park also includes a children's playground, a basketball half-court, tennis courts, a dog play area and a large grassy meadow. |