John McLaren Park - San Francisco, CA
Posted by: 
DougK
N 37° 43.091 W 122° 24.745
10S E 551785 N 4174710
AT 317 acres in size, McLaren Park is San Francisco's second largest park, after Golden Gate Park.
Waymark Code: WMF0T0
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 08/03/2012
Views: 3
From a
brief history of McLaren Park:
The site of McLaren Park was once part of two ranchos granted by Governor Alvarado in 1840 when California was a part of Mexico. Four homestead associations formed in the 1860s to promote housing developments throughout the southern portion of San Francisco. The current park land and the adjacent Portola neighborhood were designated the University Homestead Association and layed out in the traditional grid iron pattern. Because of the hilly topography and a lack of roads, few lots were sold on what is now McLaren Park; the rest of the land remained farmland, greenhouses and gardens. The highest and most hilly areas remained undeveloped.
In 1904 Daniel H. Burnham propsed that the hilly areas in the homesteads be made a city park. Hearkening back to the proposal, in 1926 the San Francisco Board of Supervisors resolved to create a 550 acre park in what was substantially the University Homestead, even though some of the parcels had been sold to individuals. The city immediately began to buy back some of the sold properties with moneys from the general fund. In need of additional funding, in 1928 the Board attempted to pass a bond issue to buy back properties and improve the park.
The bond initiative failed but the board was not deterred. The city continued to buy properties with money from the general fund. Twenty years later (1946), after many revisions of the vision and plan and a major law suit to stop the park project. The Board of Supervisors reduced the size of the plan to 318 acres. The final purchases of private property to create the present McLaren Park were completed in 1958.
Even though acquisition of all properties which now make up the park took some 32 years,the process of improving the new public space began shortly after the Board of Supervisors resolved to create a park. By early 1927, the year in which the park hosted a celebration dedicating it to John McLaren, the city's Superintendent of Parks, hundreds of new trees had already been planted.
The stock market crash of 1929 enabled San Francisco to collaborate with the President Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration (WPA) to make a substantial number of additional improvements. By 1939, the SPA work force completed installation of a long system of foot paths, hiking, fire, and equestrian trails, culverts, roadways and view drive. In addition, they completed the planting of over 10,000 trees of the eucalptus, cyress and pine varietites.
Initiatives to improve the park were suspended in the 40's but resumed in the 50's and continued through each decade to the present.
McLaren Park, San Francisco's second largest park after Golden Gate Park, borders Crocker-Amazon Park to the north. It has four playgrounds, recently renovated and lighted soccer and baseball fields, a golf course, two lakes, jogging and hiking trails, a public pool, an old reservoir that is used as a dog swimming area, and the Jerry Garcia Amphitheater which houses concerts and festivals.
From Wikipedia:
Coffman Pool was McLaren Park's first recreation facility constructed near Herz Playground, also in McLaren Park in 1958. A master plan for the park was published in 1959 which called for the creation of more recreational facilities. Construction of the facilities included in the Master Plan: The Gleneagles Golf Course, McNab Lake, Louis Sutter, Herz, and Mansfield-Burrows Playground, the Wilde Overlook, and the amphitheater (later to be renamed the Jerry Garcia Amphitheater), began in the 1960s, and also included new trails, picnic and parking areas, community gardens, and an irrigation system.
In the northeast corner of the park is Yosemite Marsh, a habitat for native species that include the forktail damselfly and flowering quillwort. Named a "significant natural resource area" by the city in 1995, the marsh marks the origin of Yosemite Creek, a body of water that flows through underground culverts towards Candlestick Point.