San Francisco is synonymous with lush gardens, striking hills, and creative architecture, but what about sand dunes? Long before the endless rows of Victorian houses and towering Financial District skyscrapers defined our landscape, San Francisco was once a vast desert, with immense sand dunes all across our 7 mile span.
We've got the scoop on how these dunes were eventually leveled to the establish the foundation and layout we know today, completed with the most ingenious and diligent community efforts.
See also: Where Are San Francisco's Steepest Hills?
View this post on Instagram
Our endless sand dunes were seen by even the earliest of San Francisco, beginning with the Yelamu tribe around 3000 B.C. Fast-forward to 1769, Don Gaspar de Portolà is documented to be the first European to set foot here, with Spanish settlers then following and creating the Presidio in 1776.
After the then-titled settlement of Yerba Buena flourished to eventually officially become San Francisco, major reconstruction of the city's landscape started to accelerate to maintain with the rising number of new residents arriving for the prospect of the Gold Rush.
View this post on Instagram
The massive dunes that filled the city were also perpetually shifted and rebuilt from constant high winds, proving a difficult mission to create new development and establish thriving greenery. The dunes were said to tower over 100 feet tall, with a particularly immense 120 foot dune on what is now Market Street. In 1849 real estate developers fabricated large steam shovels to combat the sand, pushing them towards the city's numerous tidal marshes to expand the area through using the sand as fill.
Thousands of tons of sand redefined our coastline, adding more land which would then later be fortified by overwhelming ship wreckage, still buried underneath us. Such precarious fill sand areas, such as the Marina, would later face its demise from the robust 1989 earthquake.
View this post on Instagram
Another major challenge was how to foster new nature for our Golden Gate Park, considering the barren quality of the entire sunset district, known as the “Great Sand Waste.” After several failed experiments to grow plants that would curb the sand on the 270-acre area failed, an accidentally spillage of barley seeds proved to successfully overpower the sand.
100 acres of barley, lupine, pine, and more were then planted to grow over the sand, and by 1875, 700 acres of the desolate park were now thriving with greenery and still-surviving oak trees for simply $30,000.
View this post on Instagram
Today around two square miles of dunes still remain towards the southern edge of Ocean Beach, which while not as tall as its previous iterations, still reach impressive heights that even bury the nearby crossing signs. San Francisco's ability to flourish life in an area otherwise barren and impossible truly proves our brilliant and fortuitous dedication towards innovation and community growth.
View this post on Instagram
Next time you happen to be strolling through Golden Gate Park or Ocean Beach, be sure to stop and consider what this area looked like before, and the tireless efforts to create the magic they hold today.
See also: Do You Know This Hidden San Francisco Park With The Most Instagrammable Panoramic View?
Photography by: Keith Hardy/Unsplash
