Golden Gate Park Was Once Miles and Miles of Sand Dunes

Bay Curious

KQED

History, Society & Culture, Places & Travel

4.9 • 999 Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2022

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Bay Curious listener Will Kardas heard once that it was a magical combination of spit and manure that allowed early San Franciscans to tame the sand dunes that became Golden Gate Park. We've got the true story behind the myth and more on the early history of this urban gem. This is the first in a six-part series that explores the history behind some of our favorite features in the park. We kick off the series in our podcast feed on May 26, with new episodes appearing daily from May 30 to June 3. Additional Reading: Golden Gate Park Was Once Miles and Miles of Sand Dunes Buy Tickets for our Japanese Tea Garden Walking Tour Reported by Katrina Schwartz and Olivia Allen-Price. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz, Sebastian Miño-Bucheli and Brendan Willard. Additional support from Kyana Moghadam, Jessica Placzek, Carly Severn, Amanda Font, Ethan Lindsey, Vinnee Tong and Jenny Pritchett.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From K-QED.
0:05.0	Do you hear that roar?
0:08.0	It is the Pacific Ocean.
0:11.0	I'm at Ocean Beach in San Francisco and I am surrounded by well a whole lot of
0:16.9	sand and if you look south from sort of the main part of Ocean Beach you'll notice
0:21.8	there's a lot of these sand dunes that kind of emerge, you know, sort of out of the flat part of the beach.
0:27.0	And what's pretty cool to imagine is in the mid-1800s, sort of at the beginning and into the middle of the gold rush,
0:35.1	all of this that we're looking at towards Golden Gate Park, all of that as far as you could see
0:40.4	would have been sand dunes.
0:49.0	You walk a few hundred feet off the beach and you are in Golden Gate Park, which is one of probably the most beloved urban parks in all of America,
0:52.6	maybe all of the world.
0:54.2	It's over 1,000 acres of lush European style park.
0:59.1	Trees, grasses, flowers, plants, you name it, anything but sand.
1:04.4	Now the story of how this park transformed from
1:09.8	basically a landscape into this verdant place is quite the tale. a
1:13.2	landscape into this verdant place is quite the tail.
1:16.2	One rumor going around is that a lot of horse manure and spit
1:19.9	may have been the key to this transformation.
1:22.4	Today, we'll find out. I'm Olivia on
1:24.5	Bryce and this is Bay Curious.
1:29.4	Support for Bay Curious is brought to you by Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, still family owned, operated, and argued over.
1:38.0	Explore their brews wherever fine beverages are sold and taste how trailblazing runs in the family.
	...

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