Golden Gate Park most-visited city park in the United States after Central Park in New York City, Lincoln Park in Chicago, and Balboa and Mission Bay Parks in San Diego. In the 1860s, San Franciscans began to feel the need for a spacious public park similar to Central Park, which was then taking shape in New York City. Golden Gate Park was carved out of unpromising sand and shore dunes that were known as the Outside Lands, in an unincorporated area west of San Francisco's then-current borders. Conceived ostensibly for recreation, the underlying purpose of the park was housing development and the westward
Golden Gate Park the park. Hall resigned, and the remaining park commissioners followed. In 1882 Governor George C. Perkins appointed Frank M. Pixley, founder and editor of The Argonaut, to the board of commissioners of San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Pixley was adamant that the Mooney's shanties be eliminated, and he found support with the San Francisco Police for park security. Pixley favored Stanford's company by granting a fifty-year lease on the route that closed the park on three sides to competition. The original plan, however, was back on track by 1886, when streetcars delivered over 47,000 people to Golden Gate Park on