Baker Beach is a public beach on the
peninsulaA peninsula is a piece of land that is nearly surrounded by water but connected to mainland via an isthmus. Word origin: Latin paenīnsula : paene, almost + īnsula, island.A peninsula can also be a headland, cape, island promontory, bill, point, or spit....
of San Francisco,
CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
,
U.S.The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The beach lies on the shore of the
Pacific OceanThe Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. Its name is derived from the Latin name Tepre Pacificum, "peaceful sea", bestowed upon it by the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan. It extends from the Arctic in the north to Antarctica in the south, bounded by Asia and...
to the northwest of the city. It is roughly a half mile long, beginning just south of Golden Gate Point (where the
Golden Gate BridgeThe Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening of the San Francisco Bay into the Pacific Ocean. As part of both U.S...
connects with the peninsula), extending southward toward the
SeacliffSea Cliff is a very affluent neighborhood located in northwestern San Francisco, California. It is adjacent to the Pacific Ocean and Baker Beach, southwest of the Presidio of San Francisco and east of Lincoln Park...
peninsula, the Palace of the Legion of Honor and the
Sutro BathsThe Sutro Baths were a large privately owned swimming pool complex in San Francisco, California built in the late 19th century. The building housing the baths burned down in 1966 and was abandoned. The ruins may still be visited.- History :...
.
Baker Beach is part of the
PresidioThe Presidio of San Francisco is a park on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula in San Francisco, California, within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. It has been a fortified location since 1776 when the Spanish made it the military center of their expansion in the area...
, which was a military base from the founding of San Francisco by the
SpanishSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
in 1776 until 1997.
In 1904, it was fortified with
disappearing gunA disappearing gun is a type of heavy artillery where the gun retracted or recoiled into a protected pit or bunker after firing. The advantages of the system were concealment and cover from enemy fire, especially during reloading...
installations known as
Battery ChamberlinBattery Chamberlin is an artillery battery on the grounds of the Presidio of San Francisco in San Francisco, California, United States.The battery is named in honor of Captain Lowell A. Chamberlin, 1st Artillery Division, who served with distinction in the Civil War and continued as an artillery...
, which can still be viewed today.
When the Presidio was decommissioned as a U.S.
Baker Beach is a public beach on the
peninsulaA peninsula is a piece of land that is nearly surrounded by water but connected to mainland via an isthmus. Word origin: Latin paenīnsula : paene, almost + īnsula, island.A peninsula can also be a headland, cape, island promontory, bill, point, or spit....
of San Francisco,
CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
,
U.S.The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The beach lies on the shore of the
Pacific OceanThe Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. Its name is derived from the Latin name Tepre Pacificum, "peaceful sea", bestowed upon it by the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan. It extends from the Arctic in the north to Antarctica in the south, bounded by Asia and...
to the northwest of the city. It is roughly a half mile long, beginning just south of Golden Gate Point (where the
Golden Gate BridgeThe Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening of the San Francisco Bay into the Pacific Ocean. As part of both U.S...
connects with the peninsula), extending southward toward the
SeacliffSea Cliff is a very affluent neighborhood located in northwestern San Francisco, California. It is adjacent to the Pacific Ocean and Baker Beach, southwest of the Presidio of San Francisco and east of Lincoln Park...
peninsula, the Palace of the Legion of Honor and the
Sutro BathsThe Sutro Baths were a large privately owned swimming pool complex in San Francisco, California built in the late 19th century. The building housing the baths burned down in 1966 and was abandoned. The ruins may still be visited.- History :...
.
History
Baker Beach is part of the
PresidioThe Presidio of San Francisco is a park on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula in San Francisco, California, within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. It has been a fortified location since 1776 when the Spanish made it the military center of their expansion in the area...
, which was a military base from the founding of San Francisco by the
SpanishSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
in 1776 until 1997.
In 1904, it was fortified with
disappearing gunA disappearing gun is a type of heavy artillery where the gun retracted or recoiled into a protected pit or bunker after firing. The advantages of the system were concealment and cover from enemy fire, especially during reloading...
installations known as
Battery ChamberlinBattery Chamberlin is an artillery battery on the grounds of the Presidio of San Francisco in San Francisco, California, United States.The battery is named in honor of Captain Lowell A. Chamberlin, 1st Artillery Division, who served with distinction in the Civil War and continued as an artillery...
, which can still be viewed today.
When the Presidio was decommissioned as a U.S. Army base, it became part of the
Golden Gate National Recreation AreaThe Golden Gate National Recreation Area is a U.S. National Recreation Area administered by the National Park Service that surrounds the San Francisco Bay area. It is one of the most visited units of the National Park system in the United States, with over 13 million visitors a year...
, which is administered by the
National Park ServiceThe National Park Service is the U.S. federal agency that manages all national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations...
.
From 1986 to 1990, the north end of Baker Beach was the original site of the
Burning ManBurning Man is an annual event held in the Black Rock Desert, in Northern Nevada. It takes its name from the ritual burning of a large wooden effigy on Saturday evening...
art festival. In 1990, park police allowed participants to raise the traditional large statue but not
to set it on fireAn effigy is a representation of a person, especially in the form of sculpture.The term is usually associated with full-length figures of a deceased person depicted in stone or wood on church monuments. These most often lie supine with hands together in prayer, but may also be recumbent, kneeling...
, since the beach enforces a limit on the size of any campfires. Subsequent Burning Man events have taken place in
Black Rock DesertThe Black Rock Desert is a dry lake bed and the surrounding endorheic basin in northwestern Nevada in the United States. The flat expanse of dry lake, or playa, is a remnant of the prehistoric Lake Lahontan, which existed between 18,000 and 7,000 BC during the last ice age...
,
NevadaNevada is a state located in the western region of the United States. The capital is Carson City and the largest city is Las Vegas. The state's nickname is Silver State, due to the large number of silver deposits that were discovered and mined there...
.
A
shark attackA shark attack is an attack on human by a shark. Every year, a number of people are attacked by sharks, although death is quite unusual. Despite the relative rarity of shark attacks, the fear of sharks is a common phenomenon, having been fueled by the occasional instances of attacks, such as the...
occurred on Baker Beach on May 7, 1959 when 18-year old Albert Kogler Jr. was attacked by a
great white sharkThe great white shark, Carcharodon carcharias, also known as great white, white pointer, white shark, or white death, is a large lamniform shark found in coastal surface waters in all major oceans. Reaching lengths of more than and weighing up to , the great white shark is arguably the world's...
while he was 15 feet deep in water. This was the only shark attack recorded on Baker Beach.
The northern section of Baker Beach is designated as
clothing-optionalA nude beach is a beach where users are legally at liberty to be nude. Sometimes the terms clothing-optional beach or free beach are used. Nude bathing is one of the most common forms of nudity in public...
.
Large outcrops of serpentine cliffs occur along the Pacific coast near Baker Beach. When rising from the land surface, serpentine produces a low-
calciumCalcium is the chemical element with the symbol Ca and atomic number 20. It has an atomic mass of 40.078 amu. Calcium is a soft grey alkaline earth metal, and is the fifth most abundant element by mass in the Earth's crust...
, high-
magnesiumMagnesium is a chemical element with the symbol Mg, atomic number 12 and common oxidation number +2. It is an alkaline earth metal and the eighth most abundant element in the earth's crust by mass, although ninth in the Universe as a whole...
soil that can allow for rare species of plants to develop in the vicinity. This may explain the presence of
Hesperolinon congestumHesperolinon congestum, or Marin Dwarf Flax, is an annual herb, which is known to occur only in San Mateo, San Francisco and Marin County, California, USA. This plant occurs chiefly on serpentine soils, especially in dry native bunch grasses, chaparral or other grasslands at elevations less than...
(the Marin Dwarf Flax, a threatened plant) in surrounding areas.
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