Golden Gate Park was founded 150 years ago, but it was defined in 1906.

After the April 18 earthquake and fire ravaged San Francisco, tens of thousands of residents fled to the park for refuge.

Three days later, The Chronicle described the scene in the newspaper for the first time, and it was a moving account. The rest of the paper described unfathomable damage, looters being shot on sight and city leaders who had little control of the situation. But in the park, refugees of all demographics — from a Chinese man making eggs for his neighbors to a doctor setting up a temporary practice in a tent — were bonding as San Franciscans.

“Nowhere can the full extent of the calamity make itself better felt than at Golden Gate Park, nor can the universal character of the disaster be better understood,” The Chronicle reported. “Everywhere was a lack of depression. The spirit of courage and grit to fight the thing out was everywhere, from the Chinese with the skillet up through all the intermediary classes to the patricians with five automobiles.”

The city has been redefined many times over since that tragic moment. But the spirit of Golden Gate Park, and what it represents, has been a constant.

The park has continued to welcome the outcast, and be a place where the city’s diverse population can meet as one. Culture, science, sport and social movements thrive in the park, and its traditions, especially the ones that are organic and free of corporate influence, have become some of San Francisco’s greatest stories.

Here are 10 of them. Ten times in the last 150 years that San Francisco citizens have created something wonderful, whimsical or good for the soul in Golden Gate Park, that can still be enjoyed today.

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass (2001)

“If you’re really terrible at something, you always admire those who can do it well. … This may sound maudlin, but this city, this state, this country has given everything to our family.”

Those were the words of financier Warren Hellman in 2002, when his Hardly Strictly festival was in just its second year, with 12,000 fans coming to three stages around Speedway Meadow. The free festival has grown into a behemoth, with a reported 750,000-plus arriving over three days in recent years.

Hellman’s family history dates back to the 1800s, and his banker ancestors were instrumental in the rebuild of San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake and fires. Warren Hellman died of leukemia in 2011, but the Hellman Foundation has continued to fund the festival since. It remains free.

The festival is a great gift, and a beacon for future philanthropists, as a way to take personal passions and generosity and alter the culture of a community for the better.

SF City FC (2001)

Back to Gallery Ten SF creations helped define Golden Gate Park. You can... 4 1 of 4 Photo: Jason Henry / Special to The Chronicle 2011 2 of 4 Photo: Caroline Kopp 3 of 4 Photo: Gary Fong / The Chronicle 4 of 4 Photo: James Tensuan / Special to The Chronicle







When the city announced its coronavirus ban on gatherings of more than 1,000, there was at least one sports club that continued to have options.

SF City FC attendance may number in the hundreds, but they’ve been a mighty story in Golden Gate Park since the soccer club was founded in 2001. Playing at Kezar Stadium for most of that time at family-friendly prices, SF City is owned by its fans, who design the merchandise, manage the club and cheer with the energy of a much larger crowd.

(The Northsiders, the club’s most loyal fans, chant throughout the game and have been known to ignite a smoke bomb or two …)

The next season begins in May. And with a little more word of mouth, the crowds will only grow.

National AIDS Memorial Grove (1991)

In 1991, a volunteer group took over a neglected plot of land and turned it into the National AIDS Memorial Grove, the world’s first living memorial to those who died of AIDS.

“It’s been difficult to believe in God,” said David Linger, who lost a lover to AIDS in the 1980s. “I’d much rather believe in trees.”

Fifteen acres of overgrown hillside were cleared, and gardens with tasteful landscaping flourished. But the greatest gift was the restoration of the titan redwood and cypress trees, which were neglected and dropping their limbs when the restoration started.

The National AIDS Memorial Grove is a place to think about tragedy and lives lost. And in its sprawling beauty, it’s also a place to reflect on our community and the importance of Golden Gate Park as a home for our best causes.

Comedy Day in the Park (1981)

Jose Simon came up with Comedy Day in the Park in the 1970s as a response to one of the grimmest eras in the city’s history.

“It was during the Zodiac killings,” Simon told The Chronicle in 1985, referring to a string of Northern California murders. “No one would go out at night. I was tired of the rest of the country thinking of us as a bunch of kooks and not a family city.”

His timing turned out to be fantastic. The free festival (The Chronicle was an original sponsor) grew as Comedy Day regulars, including Dana Carvey, Paula Poundstone and Whoopi Goldberg became international stars. But if Simon was the mastermind, Robin Williams was the engine, appearing as an “unannounced” closing comic for most of the first decade.

Simon died in 2008 and Williams passed in 2014, but the festival has remained in capable hands, with longtime San Francisco comic Debi Durst running the show. Debi and her husband, Will Durst, lobbied hard to get Sharon Meadow renamed as Robin Williams Meadow in 2018.

Skate Patrol and the Skatin’ Place (1979)

Looking at photos of the late 1970s roller skating scene, one sees scenes of beautiful chaos. Thousands of mostly young skaters descended on Golden Gate Park every weekend, listening to disco and funk, crowding the streets and engaging in wholesome fun.

The city didn’t see it that way. Rather than harness the skaters, officials moved to ban them. So a group of citizens, previously unengaged with anything political, formed a skate patrol — keeping order, lobbying for their own Skatin’ Place (a roller skating oasis near the Fulton Street and Sixth Avenue park entrance) and working with other groups to close streets on weekends and support other pro-pedestrian/bike/skating movements.

Forty years later, you can still skate with many of the original skate patrollers, including their leader David Miles Jr., who continues to preside over the Church of 8 Wheels and other S.F. skating events.

SF Bay Area Pro-Am Basketball League (1979)

Kezar Pavilion seemed like it was aging out in the 1970s, after decades as a home for boxing, roller derby and other events that didn’t seem to have a strong future in San Francisco.

But for the last 40 years, the grittiness of the building has been an asset for the place to be in the summer; the SF Bay Area Pro-Am Basketball League. The men’s and women’s basketball tournaments feature affordable, high-level competition filled with local legends (Frankie Ferrari, Raymond “Circus” King, Mo Brown ...) and appreciative crowds.

As an added thrill, the Kezar Pavilion Pro-Am frequently includes professional drop-ins over the years, including Jason Kidd, Gary Payton, Aaron Gordon, Jeremy Lin and Steph Curry.

Steinhart Aquarium (1923)

In 1916, the California Academy of Sciences was welcomed into Golden Gate Park after its multifloor downtown San Francisco location was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fire.

But the future of that academy would be shaped by the generosity of Ignatz Steinhart, a banker who wanted to donate the aquarium in honor of his dead brother Sigmund. The San Francisco Examiner and preservationists fought the move, accusing the rival Chronicle (which supported the aquarium) of trying to “make a Coney Island out of Golden Gate Park.”

But Ignatz Steinhart made a strong argument from beyond the grave, with a will that declared himself a widower with no motivation except to help the children of San Francisco. He paid off the entire Children’s Hospital debt of $75,000 — and gave $250,000 to start the aquarium.

Nearly a century later, it remains a centerpiece of the park, a generous gift that continues to bring joy and wonder for new generations of children and adults.

Bay to Breakers (1912)

The first Bay to Breakers had 174 runners, was called the Cross City Race and was won by Robert Vlught of St. Mary’s College, who (like everyone else) was not wearing a costume.

But the spirit of the race, and the 7.46-mile path across the city, has remained the same. The first Bay to Breakers was organized to lift spirits in a city that continued to rebuild after the 1906 earthquake and fire. After a relatively quiet first 60 years, it became a city-wide party every May in the 1970s, peaking with more than 110,000 runners by the 1980s.

Bay to Breakers has experienced its ups and downs in the years since, as the party arguably got too big and the city and organizers struggled to set a sensible rulebook. (Short version: less drinking, but nudity is still cool.) But it remains a very San Francisco event, always ready in times of strife and sadness to give us one guaranteed day of whimsy.

De Young Museum opening (1895)

Chronicle publisher M.H. de Young was a driving force behind the California Midwinter Exposition of 1894, a world’s fair that threatened the status quo in Golden Gate Park — where head gardener John McLaren cherished his huge green lawns above all.

To get City Hall’s support for the de Young Museum, de Young agreed to hand the museum to the parks department when the expo was over.

The opening on March 23, 1895, was such a huge success that the water company waived the museum’s $6,000 water bill.

“Instantly there was a good-natured scramble past the bronzed sphinxes standing near the main entrance and within twenty minutes the building, large as it is, was choked from the main floor to gallery,” The Chronicle reported. “Many who had come to criticize were quick to congratulate the promoters of the enterprise, and there were others who frankly promised assistance in making the departments more extensive.”

The museum remains the most visible structure in the park; reopening with a 144-foot tower with a stunning observation deck. Once a controversy, it’s now a visual and spiritual centerpiece of Golden Gate Park.

Golden Gate Park Band (1882)

The Golden Gate Park Band is one of the oldest traditions in San Francisco, performing continuously since 1882.

An early program published in The Chronicle in 1892 reveals an eclectic mix of music, from the “Hallelujah Chorus” by Handel, to John Philip Sousa’s march “Guide Right” to an American medley including “Washington’s March” and the “Star-Spangled Banner.”

More than 130 years later, the band looks pretty much the same. The 30-piece ensemble filled with brass and woodwind instruments wears traditional uniforms, plays on Sundays in the Spreckels Temple of Music and Music Concourse and favors a classic, eclectic, crowd-friendly program. (John Philip Sousa still makes the occasional appearance.)

Close your eyes while you listen, and you might as well be time-traveling to the 19th century.

Peter Hartlaub is The San Francisco Chronicle’s pop culture critic. Email: phartlaub@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @PeterHartlaub