San Francisco Relocation Guide - Antevia

Golden Gate Park is the largest urban park in San Francisco, California, USA. At 1017
acres (4.1 km²), it is in the shape of a long rectangle, similar in shape but 174 acres (0.7
km²) larger than Central Park in New York.
History
The domed Conservatory of Flowers is one of the world's largest. It is built of traditional
wood sash and glass pane construction. It has been extensively renovated several times
since its construction
In the 1860s, San Franciscans began to feel the need for a spacious public park like the
one that was taking shape in New York. Golden Gate Park was carved out of
unpromising sand and shore dunes that were known as the "outside lands." The tireless
field engineer William Hammond Hall prepared a survey and topographic map of the
park site in 1870 and became commissioner in 1871. He was later named California's first
State Engineer and developed an integrated flood control system for the Sacramento
Valley when he was not working on Golden Gate Park. The actual plan and planting were
developed by Hall and his assistant, John McLaren, who had apprenticed in Scotland, the
source of many of the 19th century's best professional gardeners. The initial plan called
for grade separations of transverse roadways through the park, as Frederick Law Olmsted
Jr. had provided for Central Park, but budget constraints and the positioning of the
Arboretum and the Concourse aborted the plan. In 1876, the plan was almost exchanged
for a racetrack favored by "the Big Four" millionaires, Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins,
Collis P. Huntington, and Charles Crocker. Hall resigned and all the park commissioners
followed him. Fortunately for the city, the original plan was soon back on track. By 1886,
streetcars delivered over 47,000 people to Golden Gate Park on one weekend afternoon;
the city's population at the time was about 250,000. Hall selected McLaren as his
successor in 1887.