Sutro Baths

In 1896, the Sutro Baths was opened to the public as the world's largest indoor swimming pool establishment. Built on the sleepy western side of San Francisco by wealthy entrepreneur and former mayor of San Francisco (1894-1896), Adolph Sutro, the breathtakingly vast glass, iron, wood, and cement structure was mostly hidden in, and literally filled, a small beach inlet below the Cliff House which was also owned by Adolph Sutro at the time. Both the Cliff House and the former Baths site are now a part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and operated by the United States National Park Service.

A visitor to the baths not only had a choice of 7 different swimming pools, one fresh water and 6 salt water baths ranging in temperatures, but could visit a museum displaying Sutro's large and varied personal collection of artifacts from his travels, a concert hall, seating for 8,000, and, at one time, an ice skating rink. During high tides, water would flow directly into the pools from the nearby ocean, recycling the 2 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.

The baths struggled for years, mostly due to the very high operating and maintenance costs, and eventually closed. A fire destroyed the building in 1966 shortly after, while in the process of being demolished. All that remains of the site are a labyrinth of cement skeletal remains, blocked off stairs and passageways, and a dark tunnel with a deep crevice in the middle. The Sutro Bath ruins are open to the public, but a warning sign advises strict caution, as visitors have been swept off by large waves and drowned at the site. Anton LaVey, self-professed founder of the Church of Satan, claimed shortly after the fire that he had placed a curse on the baths only months prior, saying that it would go out "with a bang." Recently, however, a relative of the owners revealed on an online forum that the Sutro Baths were quickly pushing the owners into bankruptcy and the fire was deliberately started in order to collect on insurance.

Currently, visitors coming to the Sutro Baths from the above parking lot are presented with a sign post that tells essentially nothing of what the site had once been. Inside one of the cement pits, however, someone took the time to scribble out about a paragraph apparently describing what Adolph Sutro had hoped to achieve in building the baths, but much of the writing has been covered by more recent graffiti.

Sutro Bath statistics

• Length of baths, 499.5 ft (152 m)
• Width of baths, 254.1 ft (77 m)
• Amount of glass used, 100,000 superficial ft.
• Iron in roof columns, 600 tons.
• Lumber, 3,500,000 ft (1067 km)
• Concrete, 270,000 ft³ (7,600 m³)
• Seating capacity ampitheater, 3,700.
• Seating capacity promenade, 3,700.
• Holding capacity, 25,000.
• Salt water tanks, 6.
• Capacity of tanks, 1,804,962 US gal (6,832 m³)
• Fresh water, plunge tank, 1.
• Toboggan slides in baths, 7.
• Swinging rings, 30.
• Spring boards, 1.
• Private dressing rooms, 517.
• Club rooms capacity, 1,110.
• Time required to fill tank by waves. 1 hour.
• Time required to fill tank by pump, 5 hours.

See also