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El Polin spring water bubbles from a rock wall at the head of this riparian valley. The spring provided a source of fresh water for the Spanish Presidio, and Spanish and Mexican families built their homes in this sheltered valley. Today, you can picnic in the bucolic meadows near the spring or explore the surrounding forest and grasslands.
El Polín Spring is a natural spring in San Francisco, California located in the Presidio. It is the source of the central tributary of El Polín Creek. The spring was used by the Ohlone people, the Spanish military, and the U.S. Army as a freshwater source. Much of the stream was channelized or placed in underground culverts, and many riparian areas were used for landfill. Beginning in the 2000s, the Presidio Trust has worked to rehabilitate El Polín spring and daylight sections of the creek downstream. In 2005, 77,000 tons of landfill were removed from Thompson Reach, a downstream section, and native riparian species were planted. In 2011, El Polín was restored, with new trails, native plants, and a picnic area installed.
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Founded in 1895 by the private San Francisco Golf and Country Club, the original 9-hole Presidio Golf Course was one of the earliest courses on the West Coast. In 1910, the course was expanded to 18-holes. Today, the course is open to the general public.
One of the oldest foot trails in the Presidio, Lovers' Lane is an easy, one-mile walk. U.S. soldiers used the trail to visit their lovers and family in San Francisco.
Part of it was built by the Spanish with adobe walls in the late 1700s, and was remodeled in the 1930s in the Spanish Colonial Revival-style adorned with rustic Spanish-tile gable roofs, heavy, rough timber lintels and beams, and decorative ironwork.
Information on points of interest and Presidio history is available at the Visitor Center. Several videos can be viewed in the theater and a bookstore offers topical books and other media.
Perched high atop the Presidio, Inspiration Point has great views over the Presidio and the Bay and is great to visit both during the day and at night.
The flagpole in Pershing Square (at the Main Post) marks the site of a disastrous 1915 fire that destroyed the residence and killed the wife and three daughters of General John "Black Jack" Pershing of World War I fame. Just east lies the site of the original Spanish presidio, built in 1776 on this windswept slope. A boulder by the sidewalk approximates the northwest corner of the original Presidio, which formed a square about 300 feet (100 m) on each side. Two bronze cannons at this site, forged in the 1600s, used to be mounted at Castillo de San Joaquin, a fort built at the point overlooking the Golden Gate. They are among the oldest cannon in North America.