By Kinen Carvala

On April 8, 1894, thousands of spectators watched as water first began to flow down the Huntington Falls in Golden Gate Park.

The falls were created as part of a waterworks plan where a large artificial lake surrounding Strawberry Hill and a smaller man-made reservoir on top of the hill were built. Water from the hilltop reservoir “fed” the fall to the larger lake, where water was pumped back up to the top, reported the San Francisco Examiner on Sept. 2, 1893. The San Francisco Chronicle announced the Falls as a magnificent addition to the attractions of the park.

Collis P. Huntington donated $25,000 for the waterfall, worth more than $800,000 in today’s dollars. The San Francisco Call and Post on Jan. 8, 1893, projected that more than $60,000 would be spent beautifying Strawberry Hill, which would house Huntington Falls and a wooden pedestrian bridge over the Falls.

An inscription on a stone near the top of the falls, commemorating its construction, reads:

Huntington Falls

By Gift of

Collis P. Huntington 1893

The inscription is several yards south of the top of the falls, a few steps away from a clearing next to the hilltop reservoir.

The falls are 110-feet tall, according to the SF Recreation and Park Department website.

The falls faced the fairgrounds of the California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894 in the Music Concourse. The Exposition showcased American expansion to the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco’s mild winters.

Huntington was one of the “Big Four” tycoons behind the Central Pacific Railroad, which linked to the Union Pacific Railroad in 1869 to form the first transcontinental American railway. Profit in the railroad industry came from fares and grants of real estate around railroad rights of way. The Central Pacific managed to own one-eighth of California, according to John Sedgwick’s book “From the River to the Sea.” The Big Four’s railroad empire was renamed Southern Pacific Railroad in 1884, according to Ben Ratliff’s essay on foundsf.org.

According to Buffalo Weekly Express and SF Examiner obituaries, Huntington was born in Connecticut on Oct. 22, 1821, and died at age 78 in upstate New York on Aug. 13, 1900. He went west via Panama for the California Gold Rush. Before the Panama Canal, travelers had to traverse the Panamanian jungle on land. Huntington sold food to his fellow travelers to bankroll his first store, according to Sedgwick.

He also became president of the Guatemala Central Railroad and Pacific Mail Steamship Company.

Huntington married his first wife Elizabeth Stoddard in September 1844 and adopted her niece. After Elizabeth’s death, he married Arabella Duval Yarrington in 1884, according to Syracuse University, and adopted her son Archer, according to Cerinda Evans’s biography of Huntington.

After the death of San Francisco Park Commissioner William W. Stow on Feb. 11, 1895, The Morning Call reported on Feb. 18, 1895, that Park Superintendent John McLaren years earlier had the following conversation with Stow:

“I told him one day that a waterfall could be built on the hill, and it would be an attraction. ‘How much would it cost?’ he asked. I said about $25,000. ‘Then I’ll hunt somebody up who will pay for that,’ he answered. Within 48 hours, he had Mr. Huntington on top of the hill and got the money.”

McLaren described Stow as “the political manager of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company.” The Call’s obituary for Stow stated that it was Stow’s “duty to see that measures inimical to (the railroad’s) interests were either defeated or so modified as to be more just and equitable.” Stow stopped working for the railroad for a few years only to return “at the urgent solicitation of Huntington.”

Huntington Falls’ cement and sandstone facade collapsed on July 24, 1962, after a pipe broke and washed away supporting earth. One witness to the collapse told the Examiner, “I felt the ground shaking.”

Water only started flowing again after a $846,000 restoration of a pedestrian bridge and piping. Added stepping stones were also placed at the bottom of the falls, according to a 1979 draft environmental planning report.

On April 20, 1984, San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen mentioned that the falls had been dry for decades. The falls were rededicated by then-Mayor of San Francisco Dianne Feinstein on June 12, 1984. A photograph of the falls with a second pedestrian bridge crossing the lower part of Huntington Falls was in the Examiner the following day.

The lake surrounding Strawberry Hill (island) was named Stow Lake until it was renamed Blue Heron Lake this January due to Stow’s antisemitism, as reported earlier this year in the Richmond Review.

Huntington Falls is on the east side of Strawberry Hill, in the middle of Golden Gate Park. Both bridges on the north and south sides of Strawberry Hill connect to a trail that runs around the edge of the island. That trail connects to stairs that go up to both bridges that cross the falls.