Sutro Baths: A History

A brief profile on the history of Sutro Baths. Many thanks to the Western Neighborhoods Project for letting me use some of their pictures. Check out my blog at exploringoutsidelands.wordpres...

[@dabrco]

Learned to ice skate there in the late '50s. Saw the ruins in Sept. 2011. Mourn the loss.

[@BCSchmerker]

*As it turns out, the Sutro Baths were an exact contemporary* of the Mill Valley & Mt. Tamalpais Scenic Railway, opening 14 March 1896; the Baths survived the railway, but proved too maintenance-intensive for the Sutros, who sold them and the Cliff House in 1937 to George and Leo Whitney. The Baths undid the Whitney enterprise. A new developer, Robert Fraser, had plans to build condominia over the Baths' foundations, but the fire of 1966 halted those plans in their tracks; San Francisco Police caught ex-con Magid Bateh (found guilty of arson in the loss of Jefferson Elementary school to fire in 1959), thought running away from the Baths when the fire broke out, not long afterwards but released him for lack of evidence.

[@georgehunter2813]

A good king must entertain his people.

[@Daniel-415-Ponce]

Funny how it is always these beautiful Old World buildings that end up being destroyed by mysterious fires.