Subscribe
Grab Bag

Grab Bag #52

Signs of the times and San Francisco views here and gone.

Woody LaBounty

• 8 min read
Grab Bag #52
Signs of the times and San Francisco views here and gone.

Grab Bag Guess Where

Grab Bag Guess Where
Billboards, rummy games, and a tractor. Where and when in San Francisco?

You should be able to get the when, but, as Gertrude Stein did not say, where is the where? Answer is at the end (if you are a Friend of Woody, of course...)

The Rotunda

On June 2, 1895, thousands of San Franciscans visited a new attraction at Sutro Heights, a rotunda with an upper gallery “from which can be obtained a beautiful panoramic view of the surrounding land, the broad ocean, and the mountainous country of Marin County.”

Those of you who know Sutro Heights, now a city park, can testify that it does offer some great views down Ocean Beach, over the Cliff House, and out to the Pacific Ocean and Marin County.

Those of you with some knowledge of the site’s history as the home estate of millionaire and mayor Adolph Sutro also know there was an observatory tower at its western parapet:

Sutro Heights parapet
You can still walk around the parapet, but the cottage, tower, cannon, and statues will not be there. (Estate of Adolph Sutro, Deceased. Appraised by A.S. Baldwin, March-April-May, 1910, San Francisco Public Library/SP 3)

But the observatory tower stood long before 1895 and it is not “the rotunda.” So what and where was this mystery structure? As the click-bait ads say, you might be surprised...