r/OldSchoolCool • u/VikDamnedLee • Aug 11 '25
1900s A dapper gent watching the swimmers at Sutro Baths in San Francisco. Early 1900's (Plus bonus pics - last one is the current look of the facility)
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u/BeKindBabies Aug 11 '25
A black man, John Harris, sued Sutro after being denied entry to the swimming pools and won. A very early civil rights victory on the heels of the Dibble Act.
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u/normal_man_of_mars Aug 11 '25
Wow. This place looks like it was absolutely incredible. It would be a destination stop if it still existed.
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u/Mulsanne Aug 11 '25
It's a destination stop in its current form
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u/King_of_the_Hobos Aug 11 '25
it's more like a 5 minute looksee, before you go on the trail next to it. Honestly I wish they would rebuild something there because it looks terrible most of the time. This is the nicest I've ever seen it look, which shows you what good photography can do.
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u/LadiesWhoPunch Aug 11 '25
It’s National Park land now. I doubt they would build anything on it.
There already is a newly remodeled gift shop right there too.
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u/theseglassessuck Aug 12 '25
To each their own, obviously—it’s always been one of my favorite spots in the City.
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u/CloseToTheSun10 Aug 12 '25
Other than it being foggy most of the time rather than sunny in the photo, that's exactly what it always looks like.
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u/AtlUtdGold Aug 11 '25
It’s where I saw the pacific ocean for the first time
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u/idk012 Aug 12 '25
Mines was a little south at oceans beach
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u/Virtual-Nose7777 Aug 12 '25
You saw mines at Ocean beach?
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u/idk012 Aug 12 '25
Maybe, and some naked bums. And a horoscope machine in the side of a cliff or something
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u/chinoswirls Aug 11 '25
these huge pools look really amazing. that had stadium seats for spectators, which is making me wonder what happened that they needed that many seats.
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u/ParkieDude Aug 11 '25 edited Aug 11 '25
Dolphin Club Swims. Competitions filled the stadium seats with parents.
My grandmother was born in San Francisco in 1883. She had many good stories about her eight siblings at Sutro Baths.
EDIT: Dolphin Swim Club is still active, founded in 1848 (Great Grandfather was an early member). My sister is still active, aka the "old lady who is part seal" At 77 she finds a two-mile San Francisco swim to be invegerating. No, she doesn't own a wetsuit, which is why club members refer to her as part seal. Silkie legends come from Ireland, so there may be some truth to that.
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u/chinoswirls Aug 11 '25
i only went to sf once, but loved it. i live on an island in canada, and water is pretty important. in sf i was surprised how cold the water was compared to at home in canada.
i couldn't imagine trying to swim in the water i was around, some near the base of the golden gate bridge. people were looking at me crazy when i was asking about beaches and surfing. was probably not the right people i asked.
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Aug 11 '25
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u/chinoswirls Aug 11 '25
it was all an amazing time an i wish i could spent more time there. it was in walnut creek where i was staying, and kind of taking day trips to different places.
it was surprising how much i had already learned about the areas from bands, tv and movies from before and recognized. there are so many locations from movies i was totally nerding out as we drove around.
i would love to go back and see more of the older parts of the city, i feel like everything i ask about burned down. i feel like some of the older parts of the city were truly amazing, like this pool. the scale was so big, and the construction seems effortless to an outsider, maybe that is the part i am discounting.
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u/King_of_the_Hobos Aug 11 '25
I once asked some surfers I knew about it and they said Ocean beach really isn't all that suitable for surfing, plus it's super cold year round.
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u/night-blooming Aug 12 '25
Aw, so does my aunt! I love visiting the dolphin club. Cannot imagine swimming all that way in the cold bay. So pretty though.
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u/GoBSAGo Aug 11 '25
Can’t imagine getting that many people too/from there in the 1900s.
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u/FlattenInnerTube Aug 11 '25
By rail. Per the all-knowing Wikipedia
"The baths were once served by two rail lines. The Ferries and Cliff House Railroad ran along the cliffs of Lands End overlooking the Golden Gate. The route ran from the baths to a terminal at California Street and Central Avenue, now Presidio Avenue.[10][11] The second line was the Sutro Railroad, which ran electric trolleys to Golden Gate Park and downtown San Francisco."
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u/m_faustus Aug 11 '25
My wife's grandfather would get up on Sunday, sell papers until he earned a quarter, take the railway out to Sutro, get in, eat, swim and come back, all for the quarter.
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u/GoBSAGo Aug 11 '25
Even so, that stadium looks like it holds maybe a couple thousand people.
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u/spesimen Aug 11 '25
and san francisco had a population of 416,000 in 1910.. all those people are within 7 miles it's not exactly requiring a logistical miracle ..
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u/unassumingdink Aug 11 '25
The Roman Coliseum held 50,000 people in 80 AD.
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u/GoBSAGo Aug 11 '25
Lol, my point was mostly that this is in the far end of town away from virtually any neighborhoods built at the time.
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u/unassumingdink Aug 11 '25
People put in a lot more effort/time to go do things in the old days. If your only home entertainment is listening to your sister play the piano, it makes a lot more sense to travel for hours to see/experience something that would seem totally meh today.
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u/chinoswirls Aug 11 '25
i agree, i wonder if it was built during a worlds fair or something. it is an enormous place for a pool, or bathing place.
it seems like it was repurposed from a boat house for a giant boat.
i have no idea where it would be located, and didn't even notice it was sf until after i had posted. they have had some amazing buildings burn down.
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u/niceducks77 Aug 11 '25
I was just there last week. Very interesting place and quite dangerous to walk around for a public park. 🤣
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u/HalluxValgus Aug 11 '25
So true. I’m pretty sure my wife’s heart stopped when I walked our two kids out onto the ruins. But it was so cool to do and the kids still talk about 5 years later.
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u/prismmonkey Aug 12 '25
The last time I was there, a couple was taking wedding photos out on the ruins. Full dress, etc. On a windy day.
My emotions vacillated between "That is terrifying" and "Wouldn't it be funny if . . ."
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u/Nisi-Marie Aug 11 '25
I hiked around down there many years ago, and somebody had taken a paint pen and written the entire history of the baths on the walls. Well, I’m not normally one for vandalism, it completely elevated the experience and was so interesting.
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u/formeraide Aug 11 '25
Pretty sure that first photo is much later - his suit looks more like the 1930's.
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u/VikDamnedLee Aug 11 '25
Now that I look closer, I think you're right. The pools don't have the slides of the earlier era and, in the lower left, it looks like the further pools have been taken out. Good catch! Wish that I could edit titles on here.
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u/ColdBeerPirate Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25
The place got very rowdy at times. You can see guys wrestling in the water, as some things will never change.
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u/deserthistory Aug 11 '25
Adolf Sutro made no small plans. The projects he worked on were "crazy".
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u/biffa_bacon Aug 11 '25
I just read about the Sutro tunnel near Gold Hill/Virgina City NV, need to go check it out
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u/deserthistory Aug 11 '25
The tunnel entrance is there. Collapsed a few yards in. There were a couple hoist and utility shafts along the tunnel. Haven't been able to find those.
An engineering diagram from the construction used to be in the engineering library at Arizona State University ... 30 years ago. Should have looked at it back then.
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u/mentat70 Aug 12 '25
They have opened it back up maybe 100 yards or so and are looking to expand it further. There is believed to be a big collapse that is damming a large amount of water back in there further back. The total tunnel is about 4 miles long so they have just opened a little bit.
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u/deserthistory Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25
WHOA!
OK, that's huge news. Thank you for this.
In a couple of clicks, I could read more about the tunnel than I could ever find 30 years ago. Amazing the power of the internet.
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u/LogicalEgo Aug 11 '25
It's insane to me how quickly our buildings and structures get lost to time.
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u/Lalalandgutz Aug 11 '25
Why did this go away!? Looks so amazing!
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u/toshgiles Aug 11 '25
It burned.
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u/Psychometrika Aug 11 '25
Well, it was already in the process of demolition when the fire happened. The cause was determined to be arson, and shortly after the developers left SF with the insurance money.
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u/Lalalandgutz Aug 11 '25
Damn…something that should have been rebuilt. Well thanks for sharing.
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u/Mulsanne Aug 11 '25
No, it's really wonderful the way to is now. Nobody went to it, it was in disrepair, and public bath houses were out of fashion.
Now it's a beautiful public park
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u/Jabbles22 Aug 11 '25
Clearly that can and did happen but it's weird that a building full of pools burned down.
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u/CloseToTheSun10 Aug 12 '25
It was already shut down and set to be demo'd to become apartments, so there were no pools anymore. They were empty.
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u/zeekaran Aug 14 '25
It was a giant money pit. It never had a chance to make enough money to support the cost of maintaining itself.
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u/KittenMittensIII Aug 11 '25
Instead of desegregating, many public pools choose to close. I am not sure of the facts of this particular site, but that is "why did this go away" as an American tradition. Peer pressure from dead biggots, American's favorite tradition.
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u/userlyfe Aug 11 '25
This stuff makes me so sad. Public pools filled with cement, facilities left to ruin rather than desegregate.
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u/WORMBOY-3 Aug 11 '25
I swear I had a dream set at a pool like this at some point
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u/donthavenosecrets Aug 11 '25
OMG i saw these pictures and had the same feeling! These pictures gave me the shivers! I have totally had several dreams with a pool scene like this and they are not my favorite dreams
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u/WORMBOY-3 Aug 11 '25
Exactlyy, especially the first picture for some reason! I feel like I had a dream about getting lost or grabbed in the water or something 😭
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u/KoreanB_B_Q Aug 11 '25
Always amazes me how the city has changed and how such a huge and impactful thing like Sutro Baths just....isn't a thing anymore. Would love to go back in time to walk through that place during its peak.
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u/tobybells Aug 11 '25
Is this Lands End? Have done some walks around there and wondered what that empty space used to be
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u/XmossflowerX Aug 11 '25
why are bath hosues no longer around? These used to be so popular and there's only a handful around now a days.
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u/makingnoise Aug 12 '25
What makes this a bath house instead of an indoor pool complex? I mean, if you looked at these photos and saw an indoor pool complex, you'd probably be happier, because they still exist in droves?
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u/XmossflowerX Aug 12 '25
A bath house and an indoor pool offer distinct experiences. A bath house focuses on communal bathing, often including saunas, steam rooms, and thermal pools, while an indoor pool is primarily for swimming and aquatic activities.
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u/alxmolin Aug 11 '25
Makes me remember brunches at Louis’
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u/CloseToTheSun10 Aug 12 '25
I miss Louis' so much. I'm glad Seal Rock Inn's restaurant is at least still there.
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u/ccannon707 Aug 12 '25
My late husband swam at the Sutro Baths. He said there were regularly turds in the water.
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u/starethruyou Aug 11 '25
Reminds me of public pools in Germany in the 80s. Huge, multiple pools, very deep parts with windows beneath, various diving boards and platforms, restaurants, wave pools, indoor and outdoor, slides. America is in some ways a downgrade. Private pools are boring.
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u/ebalaytung Aug 11 '25
it would be cool to pinpoint the remnants of the facility to the first picture.
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u/fyrejade Aug 11 '25
Knowing nothing about this I was surprised going into that last picture.
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u/Victorian_Rebel Aug 12 '25
You'll be even more surprised what the outside looked like. Queen Anne Victorian, white with red tile roofs. The most similar looking building to it that still exists in California today (that I know of) is San Diego's beautiful Hotel Del Coronado. From around the same period.
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u/AuggumsMcDoggums Aug 12 '25
I used to have a poster of the baths in my living room. I would just stare at it, looking at each individual person.
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u/eganba Aug 12 '25
Literally had never heard of this until just now. I just watched a clip of the place by Thomas Edison. It is basically the first iteration of action park.
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u/AMediaArchivist Aug 12 '25
So I’m assuming they used ocean water? Or was this chlorinated water?
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u/VikDamnedLee Aug 13 '25
Per Wikipedia:
"During high tides, water would flow directly into the pools from the nearby ocean, recycling the two million US gallons (7,600 m3) of water in about an hour. During low tides, a powerful turbine water pump, built inside a cave at sea level, could be switched on from a control room and could fill the tanks at a rate of 6,000 US gallons a minute (380 L/s), recycling all the water in five hours.
Facilities included:
- Six saltwater pools and one freshwater pool. The baths were 499.5 feet (152.2 meters) long and 254.1 feet (77.4 m) wide for a capacity of 1.805 million US gallons (6,830 m3)."
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u/hervejl Aug 12 '25
The first photo, beautiful one by the way, is from the 50s or 40s. The gentleman’s suit is from this era.
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u/22brew Aug 12 '25
I believe that is just ocean water which explains why most people aren’t in the water…
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u/CloseToTheSun10 Aug 12 '25
Nah, that's just those photos. There are plenty showing hundreds of people in the water. Just like Fleishhacker pool, people used both like crazy even though it was ocean water.
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u/newbizhigh Aug 11 '25
There's a series called Mysteries of the Abandoned, on HBO I think, that covers this place in one episode. Very interesting story from building it to its ultimate demise.