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Take a walking tour through the remains of Sutro Baths, which once contained the largest indoor saltwater swimming pools of its time.
Although Sutro Baths today are a merely water-filled pools of ruble, in 1894 when they first opened to the public there were part of a grand
recreational faciltiy which appeared as an enormous victorian glass
greenhouse structure containing seven swimming pools. The largest tank was
300 feet by 175 feet. The structure also contained three levels of galleries
with corridors containing hundreds of museum display cases. The structure
was enclosed with 100,000 square feet of glass. The largest pool was kept at ocean temperature, but the five other saltwater pools were heated - each at a warmer temperature to suite individualpreferences. There was one freshwater pool. Without filters the pools had to be emptied regularly and replaced with fresh seawater. The pools were filled by high tides with over a million gallons of sea water. The baths stayed in operation until just after World War II but the museum and an ice rink contained in the same building stayed open until 1966. A suspicious fire completely destroyed the building that same year. Today the National Park Service owns the land and have made it a part of the Golden Gate National Recreational Area, along with the Cliff House and Sutro Heights. |
