McLaren Park

McLaren Park may refer to:

John McLaren

John McLaren is the name of:

John McLaren (horticulturist)

Dr John Hays McLaren (1846–1943) served as superintendent of the Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, CA for 53 years.

Born at Bannockburn, near Stirling in Scotland, and worked as a dairyman before studying horticulture at the Edinburgh Royal Botanical Gardens where he worked as an apprentice gardener's helper. He planted grasses anchoring the beach dunes along the Firth of Forth then emigrated to the United States in 1870 and worked on the George Howard estate in the San Mateo foothills, then on the Leland Stanford estate in Palo Alto and planted trees on the Coyote Point on the shore of the Bay.

He was friends with John Muir, and dedicated his life to vigorous advocacy and development of the 1,017-acre (4.12 km²) Golden Gate Park, one of the largest public parks in the world, using considerable political skill in addition to his remarkable gardening skill. Appointed Park Superintendent in 1887, he requested thirty thousand dollars a year for park building. One of John McLaren's stipulations before taking the superintendent job was, "There will be no 'Keep off the Grass' signs." His horticultural philosophy was to achieve a natural look, typified in his dislike for statuary, calling them "stookies" and planting trees and shrubs to hide them. He built two windmills to pump water to his park and had the sweepings from San Francisco streets delivered as fertilizer. When ocean waves and wind piled sand on the west end of the park, he began a forty year effort to pile branches, clippings and laths on the shore to capture sand and build the great berm that now holds the Great Highway.

John McLaren (cricketer)

John William McLaren (22 December 1886, Toowong, Queensland – 17 November 1921, Highgate Hill, Queensland) was an Australian cricketer who played in 1 Test in 1912.

Son of Elizabeth McINTYRE and William McLAREN

A diabetic, McLaren died in 1921 aged 34 as a result of his condition and was buried in Brisbane's Toowong Cemetery.

References

John McLaren Park

John McLaren Park is a park in south-eastern San Francisco. John McLaren Park is the second largest park in San Francisco after Golden Gate Park. The park is surrounded mostly by the Excelsior, Crocker-Amazon, Visitacion Valley, Portola and University Mound neighborhoods.

History

John McLaren Park was once a part of Rancho Cañada de Guadalupe la Visitación y Rodeo Viejo. When California was part of Mexico, its then governor Juan Bautista Alvarado granted what is now known as John McLaren Park to the local authorities in 1840.

In 1905, subdivisions of the land grant were drawn up and Daniel Burnham recommended that the land where John McLaren Park is today be a park. The land was purchased by the Board of Supervisors in 1928 despite a bond measure being defeated. In 1934, John McLaren organized a dedication flag ceremony in the park, which bears his name, and it is currently the second-largest park in the city.

Amenities

Coffman Pool was John McLaren Park's first recreation facility constructed near Herz Playground, also in John 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.