On the westernmost edge of San Francisco you can find an unusual park that features the ruins of what were once known as the Sutro Baths. Opened in 1896, the baths were the largest indoor pool facility in the world. Nestled on the cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean, the baths were created by former San Francisco Mayor Adolph Sutro. They featured seven pools, one freshwater and six filled with seawater, maintained at varying temperatures, containing approximately 2 million gallons.
According to Eugenia Kellogg Holmes in her book Adolph Sutro: A Brief Story of a Brilliant Life, the pools were intended to "... rival in magnitude, utility and beauty, the famous abluvion resorts of Titus, Caracalla, Nero or Diocletian."
In addition to the pools, the facility contained "five hundred dressing rooms ... spacious elevators and broad staircases ... pavilions, balustrades, promenades, alcoves and corridors adorned with tropical plants, fountains, flowers, pictures ... the collected treasure of foreign travels ... a portico with four Ionic columns and pilasters which lead to a noble staircase, wide, gradual of ascent, bordered with broad-leaved palms, the flowering pomegranate, fragrant magnolias ... [touching] the very rim of the reveling waves."
The facility burned and was demolished in 1966. The site is now part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, property of the U.S. National Park Service. The facility's ruins remain a major tourist attraction.
