Vestiges of Lands End Resources

Vestiges of Lands End

 

The information presented in Vestiges of Lands End was drawn from a variety of sources including photographs, maps, newspaper articles, personal recollections, books, and modern scholarly articles. Many of these resources are available to anyone who would like to explore the history and culture of Lands End and its connections to San Francisco. Some resources can be found online in electronic formats; hard copies of some materials can be found in the History Center at the Main Branch of the San Francisco Public Library and/or at the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) Park Archives and Records Center in the Presidio of San Francisco. Both the San Francisco Public Library’s History Center and the GGNRA Park Archives and Records Center are open to the public for research.

Websites

The Cliff House Project website and the Western Neighborhoods Project website provide a wealth of information on aspects of Lands End history. The Cliff House Project is devoted to the Victorian Cliff House, which graced Lands End from 1896 to 1907. The Cliff House Project includes historical items such as photographs, postcards, illustrations, maps, menus, souvenirs, and a multitude of other Cliff House objects.

In contrast to the narrow focus of the Cliff House Project, the Western Neighborhoods Project features topics concerning a broad area of the western portion of San Francisco. The Western Neighborhoods Project website contains links to many articles by modern authors who reflect on their memories of Lands End though the mid-late 20th century, as well as scholarly essays on topics of historical interest from the late 19th century onward. The website also features numerous photographs and videos arranged by geographic region, and searchable by topic.

The Golden Gate National Recreation Area has several webpages on Lands End history as well as Lands End visitor information.

Historic Photographs

There are several sources for historic photographs of the Lands End area in addition to the websites listed above.

The Main Branch of the San Francisco Public Library houses the San Francisco Historical Photo Collection, which is open to the public for research. Their collection offers many digitized photographs and can be viewed through the library website.

The Golden Gate National Recreation Area Park Archives and Record center, located in Building 667 at the Presidio of San Francisco, also contains many photographs. Please visit their website for visiting hours and information about the archive’s collections.

Books featuring photos of Lands End points of interest include Marilyn Blaisdell’s self-published San Francisciana Photographs of Sutro Baths (1987), Ariel Rubissow Okamoto’s Cliff House and Lands End: San Francisco’s Seaside Retreat (1993), and A Day at the Seaside: San Francisco’s Sutro Heights, Cliff House, and Sutro Baths (1998). These publications can be purchased through many online book distributors, and are also available at the San Francisco Public Library.

Historic Newspaper Articles

The California Digital Newspaper Collection website links to searchable electronic versions of the Daily Alta California and San Francisco Call Bulletin newspapers published between the years of 1846 and 1922. The San Francisco Public Library also contains a collection of California newspapers on microfilm.

 

Historic Maps

Several historic maps depict the changing landscape of Lands End over the past century. Starting in the 1860s and continuing to the modern day, the Sanborn Map Company published detailed maps of urban areas for fire insurance purposes. The maps show buildings and structures as well as streets, water lines, and other infrastructure. Portions of Lands End are depicted on Sanborn map editions from 1899, 1905, and 1913-15. Other maps are available at the GGNRA archives, including the 1885 “Plan of Sutro Heights” (Garte), 1910 “Map of Sutro Heights, Sutro Bath, Cliff House, Shore Lands, and Richmond Lots and Blocks, as described in the report of A.S. Baldwin” (Punnett), and 1928 “Map of Sutro Baths and Grounds and Adjacent Property” (Morser).

Contemporary Books

Several books published in the late 19th-early 20th century describe people, places, and events at Lands End. These include biographies of Adolph Sutro (Colby 1898, Kellog 1895), and a poem celebrating the scenic landscape of Lands End (Jackson 1890).

Other Collections

The Sutro Baths special collection, housed at the San Francisco Public Library’s History Center, contains receipts, correspondence, and letters of Adolph Sutro relating to the Baths.

The Bancroft Museum in Berkeley, California, houses two collections related to Adolph Sutro and his establishments at Lands End. The Adolph Sutro Collection (BANC MSS C-B 465) consists of correspondence, financial records, and other personal papers about Sutro’s business endeavors at Lands End and elsewhere, as well as papers relating to Sutro’s term as San Francisco mayor. The Sutro Papers (Collection No. 1968/003) contains personal and business documents, correspondence, news clippings, photographs, and ephemera about Sutro and Sutro Baths. The Sutro Papers collection is housed at the Magnes Museum, a subdivision of the Bancroft Library.

Modern Articles and Books

A variety of articles and books reflecting upon people, places, and events tied to Lands End have been authored over the past fifty years. Some are intended for a popular audience, others are scholarly. A list of news articles, journal articles, books, and pamphlets addressing Lands End topics appears at the end of this bibliographic essay.

National Park Service Publications

The "Sutro District Cultural Landscape Report" is available for download on the parks' on-line cultural resources publication page. Another useful document, "The History and Significance of the Adolph Sutro Historic District: Excerpts from the National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form" (2000), can be found on the Lands End history page.

 

Bibliography

Blaisdell, Marilyn. 1987 San Francisciana Photographs of Sutro Baths. Self-published, San Francisco, California.

Brill, Dick. 1974 "Sutro Heights Once a Match for Xanadu, " San Francisco Progress, March 8, 1974, p. 3.

Buzon, Michele R., Phillip L. Walker, Francine Drayer Verhagen, and Suzanne L. Kerr 2005 “Health and Disease in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco: Skeletal Evidence from a Forgotten Cemetery”. Historical Archaeology 39(2):1.15.

Casella, Eleanor Conlin 2005 “’Games, Sports and What-Not’: Regulation of Leisure and the Production of Social Identities in Nineteenth Century America”. In, The Archaeology of Plural and Changing Identities: Beyond Identification. Edited by Eleanor Conlin Casella and Chris Fowler, pp.163-189. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York.

Colby, Frank Moore (ed.) 1898 “Sutro, Adolph”. The International Yearbook, p. 762. Dodd, Mead, and Co., New York.

Cutler, Phoebe 2001 “Sutro Heights and its Sources”. Eden (Spring 2001).

Elam, Barbara 1975 The Separate World of Sutro Heights. Published by Barbara Elam, San Francisco.

Holmes, Eugenia Kellog 1895 Adolph Sutro: a brief story of a brilliant life, Volume 1. Press of San Francisco photo-engraving co., San Francisco.

Jackson, E.J. 1890 Autumnal Sunset. J. Winterburn & Co., Printers.

Lewis, Emanuel Raymond 1965 A History of San Francisco Harbor Defense Installations: Prepared for Forts Baker, Barry, Cronkhite and Funston. Division of Beaches and Parks, State of California.

Levy, Richard 1978 “Costanoan”. In Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 8, pp. 485-495. Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.

Lightfoot, Kent G. and Otis Parish 2009 California Indians and their Environment. University of California Press, Berkeley.

Milliken, Randall 1995 A Time of Little Choice: The Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area 1769-1810. Ballena Press, Menlo Park, California.

Okamoto, Ariel Rubissow 1998 A Day at the Seaside: San Francisco’s Sutro Heights, Cliff House, and Sutro Baths. Golden Gate National Parks Association, San Francisco, California.

Proctor, Jacqueline, and Joyce Hendrickson 2010 Bay Area Beauty: The Artistry of Harold G. Stoner, Architect. Jaqueline Proctor, Publisher.

Rubissow, Ariel 1993 Cliff House and Lands End: San Francisco’s Seaside Retreat. Golden Gate National Parks Association, San Francisco, California.

Spell, Lota M. 1949 “The Sutro Library”. The Hispanic-American Historical Review, Vol. 29 No. 3, pp. 452-454

Stewart, Robert E., Jr., and Mary Frances Stewart 1962 Adolph Sutro, A Biography. Howell-North, Berkeley, California.

Sutro, Adolph v.d. Clipping Scrapbook, Adolph Sutro Papers Collection, 1853-1900. Collection number MS 2115. Manuscript on file at California Historical Society, San Francisco.

Toogood, A. 1980 Historic Resource Study: A Civil History of Golden Gate National Recreation Area and Point Reyes National Seashore, California (2 volumes). U.S. Government Printing Office, Denver, Colorado.

Townsend, Edward W. 1894 “Adolph Sutro, Mayor-Elect of San Francisco”. In Review of Reviews, Volume X (July- December), pp. 626-629, edited by Albert Shaw.

Maps

Garte, Carl 1885 Plan of Sutro Heights, Cliff House, and Seal Rocks. On file at Golden Gate National Recreation Area Archive, Fort Mason, San Francisco.

Morser, E. J. 1928 Map of Sutro Baths and Grounds and Adjacent Property. On file at Golden Gate National Recreation Area Archive, Fort Mason, San Francisco.

Punnett, John M. 1910 Map of Sutro Heights, Sutro Bath, Cliff House, Shore Lands, and Richmond Lots and Blocks, as described in the report of A.S. Baldwin. On file at Golden Gate National Recreation Area Archive, Fort Mason, San Francisco.

Sanborn Map Company v.d. Ocean Terrace, 1899, 1905, 1913-1915

Wheeler, G.M. 1867 Topographical Map of the Military Survey of Fort Point. Corps of Engineers. On file at Golden Gate National Recreation Area Archive, Fort Mason, San Francisco.

Various maps without date or publisher, on file at Golden Gate National Recreation Area Archive, Fort Mason, San Francisco