‘Looking Back’: Rainbow Falls

Who put the rainbow in “Rainbow Falls” in Golden Gate Park?

Before there were any humans around to construct artificial waterfalls, the rock next to today’s Rainbow Falls was forming on the ocean floor more than 100 million years ago.

Silica shells of dead plankton slowly rained onto the deep ocean floor, according to the National Park Service. The accumulated shells during millions of years eventually came under enough pressure to form rock called chert.

The earth’s surface is divided into various tectonic plates that drift over currents of hot liquid rock. The tectonic plate underlying the Pacific Ocean used to subduct, or go under, North America’s tectonic plate, with chert from the ocean being scraped onto North America. (Today the Pacific and North American Plates slide past each other at the San Andreas Fault, sometimes smoothly, sometimes suddenly, causing earthquakes.)

Rock from a quarry at the present Rainbow Falls site was used in building Golden Gate Park roads, as noted by the California State Mineralogist in a 1896 report. Rock at the quarry site includes chert.

By the 1920s, the quarry was no longer mined, but homeowners on Fulton Street complained about the sand, dirt and dust that was dumped into the former quarry being blown into their homes. A June 11, 1928, article in The Chronicle about transforming the quarry said Park Superintendent John McLaren had “that well-known twinkle in his eye” while saying “… perhaps those good people do deserve something” when referring to the residents near the quarry.

Herbert Fleishhacker Sr., a banker and San Francisco Park Commission president, visited Paris in 1924 and saw a waterfall in the Bois de Boulogne park. He encouraged McLaren to build a similar waterfall in Golden Gate Park, according to Golden Gate Park’s National Register of Historic Places Registration Form.

The San Francisco Board of Park Commissioners decided to set aside $17,500 for “the development of a waterfall and lake in the vicinity of 24th Avenue and the Main Drive (now JFK Drive)” according to the Board’s June 18, 1929 meeting minutes. The 1930 Rainbow Falls were a gift from Herbert Fleishhacker Sr. and his wife. The Rainbow Falls were built closer to 19th Avenue.

The Aug. 1, 1929, the Chronicle reported that the Rainbow Falls project was “under the direction of Superintendent John McLaren and his assistants.” McLaren used cement on either side of the waterfall site so that water would not erode away the cliff face as easily, according to the SF Chronicle on July 6, 1930. The waterfall is part of a circulation system; after falling more than 50 feet in two leaps into the former quarry, water flows into a stream westbound along JFK Promenade with the water passing under elevated Crossover Drive and tunneling very briefly under Transverse Drive before re-emerging along JFK Drive before eventually emptying into Lloyd Lake near 23rd Avenue and Portals of the Past. Water from Lloyd Lake is pumped through a pipeline up to the falls to be recycled. McLaren added plants, ferns and shrubs to the face of the hill and along the stream. “Hundreds of sightseers” came out to see the Rainbow Falls start flowing down the cliff on April 6, 1930.

The “rainbow” part came with the National Electric Light convention which turned on its various colored new electric projectors “at intervals in the falls” on June 17, 1930, with McLaren in attendance. The General Electric Company (GE) and GE’s Chairman Owen D. Young were thanked in a Park Commission resolution adopted on June 30, 1930, for providing the lights in the park during the convention at their expense. (Lights were also set up at the valley in front of the Conservatory of Flowers, according to the SF Examiner.) The Nov. 14, 1931, issue of “Electric World” mentioned Rainbow Falls having submerged floodlights of different hues changing automatically producing a varying display of colors.

Owen D. Young (no relation to the de Young museum) met Herbert Fleishhacker years earlier on a business trip to San Francisco from March 30 to April 2, 1921, before sailing across the Pacific to explore business opportunities in Asia, according to Josephine Young Case’s biography on Young. At the time, Young was vice president of GE and chairman of Radio Corporation of America (RCA), GE’s radio communications subsidiary, according to RCA’s website.

Rainbow Falls stopped flowing for nine months due to a landslide cutting off a water channel, reported the SF Examiner on July 10, 1971. On May 27, 1975, the SF Examiner described the falls as “a sort of hit-and-miss operation in recent years” because the falls were turned off earlier due to a rehabilitation project and energy conservation.

San Francisco voters in June 1992 approved a $76.2 million bond issue for renovations and repairs throughout Golden Gate Park. Rainbow Falls being examined for structural integrity due to possible soil erosion was part of the Golden Gate Park Master Plan adopted in 1998, funded by bonds and city general funds.

Rainbow Falls is on the north side of JFK Promenade, 700 feet east of the intersection of Transverse Drive and JFK Promenade. Folds of chert are visible in the cliffs east of the falls. There are no longer rainbow lights illuminating the falls.

Above Rainbow Falls is the Prayerbook Cross. Here is a previously published story on its history: https://sfrichmondreview.com/2019/08/30/gg-parks-hidden-history-treasure-quietly-turns-125/

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Tagged as: Golden Gate Park, History, kinen carvala, looking back, rainbow falls, Richmond District, Richmond Review, Sunset Beacon, Sunset District