People have enjoyed Glen Canyon for hundreds of years. Ohlone Indians hunted on the site, and in the late eighteenth century it became grazing land for Mission Dolores. During Mexican rule in the 1840s, the park site was part of Jose Noe's Rancho San Miguel, and in early American times it was a haven for smugglers and cattle rustlers who allegedly hid in Devil's Cave and Dead Man's Cave.
In the 1850s Adolph Sutro bought 1,200 acres of Rancho San Miguel, including Glen Canyon. In 1886, with the help of school children, Sutro planted pines, Monterey cypress, acacia and blue gum eucalyptus, species which still thrive in the park today.
Glen Canyon had already become the site of the first commercial dynamite manufacturing operation in the United States. Run by the Giant Powder Company, the plant began operating in 1868 but was completely destroyed in an explosion the next year. In 1889 Adolf Sutro's heirs sold the land to the Crocker Real Estate Company, which constructed an amusement park with an aviary, bowling alley, small zoo, and attractions such as a tightrope walk across the canyon and balloon ascents. The area was purchased by the City of San Francisco in 1922 for $30,000.
In 1941, 0'Shaughnessy Boulevard was completed and cut off the watershed on the west side of the park, further diminishing Islais Creek. SilverTree Day Camp was established that same year. In the 1970s, a plan to widen O'Shaughnessy Boulevard and make it part of the freeway system was defeated by community opposition led by the "Gum Tree" ladies.
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