Golden Gate Park

Before you lies a landscape that was once described by experts as impossible to cultivate. In the eighteen sixties, the area was known as the Outside Lands, a desolate stretch of shifting sand dunes that local leaders wanted to transform into a grand municipal park. The famous designer of New York City's Central Park, Frederick Law Olmsted, actually advised the city against the project, insisting that trees could never grow in such harsh, windswept sand. The city moved forward anyway, tasking engineer William Hammond Hall with the seemingly hopeless job of taming the desert. Hall eventually succeeded by planting hardy shrubs and grasses to stabilize the dunes, setting the foundation for the sprawling, green oasis you see today.