PARK AND CEMETERY. 
33 
JAPANESE TEA GARDEN, GOLDEN GATE PARK. 
plazas of the city to something like the 
standards of beauty and convenience which 
were noted prior to April of that year. 
The damage to Golden Gate Park by rea- 
son of refugee occupancy after the fire was 
estimated at $174,000, and it was then 
understood that the Relief and Red Cross 
Corporation would pay that amount to the 
city for the benefit of the Park fund, but 
no payment on this account has been made. 
The annual cost of maintaining Golden 
Gate Park is steadily increasing. Extension 
of the cultivated area to the ocean on the 
west and to the limits of the reservation 
north and south, renders the employment 
of more help absolutely essential. There 
is likewise an unceasing demand for more 
water, more loam and for more material 
and labor to keep the driveway? in first 
class condition. 
The problem now presented to the Com- 
mission is whether Golden Gate Park shall 
be maintained in the manner which has 
done so much to give it renown in the 
world of parks, or to divert funds which 
are needed for the main reservation, in 
order to improve and adorn Lincoln Park, 
Balboa Park, and perform the work needed 
to preserve Buena Vista Park and the 
smaller squares, plazas and school lots. 
There is not sufficient money available to 
improve and keep up the smaller reserva- 
tions without neglecting some of the fea- 
tures which are essential to the eminence 
of Golden Gate Park. 
The boulevard along the shore of the 
Pacific from the Cliff House south to the 
county line is the dream of the landscape 
architect. It will be recognized as a park 
feature unique, wonderfully beautiful, and 
readily accessible to a vast population. It 
is the desire of the commissioners to make 
the boulevard 250 feet wide. Reinforced 
concrete piers 30 feet in length are to be 
sunk to a distance of 18 feet in the sand. 
At the base of the closely placed piers 
there will be lodged rough rubble stone to 
prevent erosion by the waves of the ocean. 
The plans approved, or under construction, 
provide for building a balustrade on top of 
the concrete piers. Immediately east of 
the balustrade railing a curb will designate 
the line of the pedestrian promenade, 20 
feet wide. East of the foot path there will 
be a magnificent driveway 150 feet wide. 
Since the adoption of Ordinance 800, re- 
serving Golden Gate Park for public use, 
the city has expended on this pleasure 
ground a sum slightly in excess of seven 
and a half million dollars. This covers a 
period of forty-two years. 
A chapter in the recent annual report of 
the Park Commissioners of San Francisco 
is devoted to the history of water develop- 
ment in Golden Gate Park. The initial 
cost of supplying water for Golden Gate 
Park by the Spring Valley Water Works 
was 40 cents per 1,C00 gallons, and that 
cost was gradually reduced to 23 cents per 
1,000 gallons, but at the lesser figure the 
daily use in summer and autumn of a suf- 
ficient quantity of water to keep the mead- 
ows, lawns and gardens alive was wholly 
beyond the revenue at the disposal of the 
board. To obtain something like an ade- 
quate supply, wells were sunk in the valley 
at the southeasterly base of Strawberry 
Hill. 
The development of this source of supply 
and its enlargement under the direction of 
Suprintendent John McLaren was gratify- 
ing to the public and the commissioners, 
but was only a partial solution of the prob- 
lem of irrigation. Later on Commissioners 
A. B. Spreckles, who was for many years 
president of the board, and the late Reuben 
H. Lloyd, a member of the commission, re- 
solved to test the capacity of the subter- 
ranean streams flowing from Strawberry 
Valley into the Pacific Ocean. An ample 
supply of water was found, and a wind- 
mill with a capacity of 30,000 gallons per 
hour was placed near the ocean. Through 
a twelve-inch pipe two miles in length to a 
reservoir 200 feet above ocean level the 
fresh water was pumped at an expense ap- 
proximating one cent per 1,000 gallons. 
The experiment was so highly successful 
that another system of wells and a second 
windmill at the southwestern corner of the 
park were recommended. Samuel G. Mur- 
phy nrovided from his own means the sum 
of $20,000 to erect the windmill. The Mur- 
phy windmill, the largest in the world, lifts 
40,000 gallons of water per hour. 
The Park Commission of San Francisco 
does not derive any revenue to speak of 
from these sources, known to park manage- 
