Lake Merced facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Lake Merced |
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 Lake Merced
Location in California
Lake Merced
Location in the United States
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| Location | San Francisco, California |
| Coordinates | 37°43′12″N 122°29′42″W / 37.72°N 122.495°W |
| Type | Reservoir |
| Primary inflows | Spring |
| Basin countries | United States |
| Surface area | 650 acres (260 ha) |
| Surface elevation | 23 ft (7 m) |
| Type | Municipal (San Francisco) |
| Location | San Francisco |
| Area | 614 acres (2.48 km2; 0.96 sq mi) |
| Created | 1940s |
| Status | Open all year |
Lake Merced is a freshwater lake located in the southwest part of San Francisco, in the state of California, United States. It's a popular spot surrounded by lots of interesting places.
Around the lake, you'll find three golf courses, including the public TPC Harding Park. There are also homes, schools like Lowell High School and San Francisco State University, and a shopping center called Stonestown Galleria. Nearby are Fort Funston and the Pacific Ocean.
Lake Merced is a great place for water sports! While a sailing club used to be here, San Francisco State University now runs a sailing and paddling program. It's also home to the Pacific Rowing Club and St. Ignatius College Prep Rowing Team, where high school students from San Francisco train and compete in rowing.
It's important to know that the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) has created a special guide for eating fish caught from Lake Merced. This guide helps people know which fish are safe to eat because of levels of mercury found in some fish.
The Story of Lake Merced
Lake Merced has a long and interesting history! It was first named Laguna de Nuestra Señora de la Merced by Captain Don Bruno de Heceta way back in 1775.
A few years later, in March 1776, Father Pedro Font was on an expedition to set up the Presidio of San Francisco. He wrote in his diary that they saw a beautiful area near the "Laguna de la Merced" and even spotted many California Grizzly Bears there!
Something surprising happened on November 22, 1852. People living near the lake felt a big shake. The next day, they found a huge crack in the ground, about half a mile wide! Through this crack, the lake's water started flowing out to the ocean. This was probably caused by heavy rains pushing a path through the sand near the lake. Lake Merced lost about 30 feet (9 meters) of its water that day. Even 29 years later, a map from 1881 showed that the lake still had a connection to the sea.
The lake was once owned by Francisco De Haro, who was the first "Alcalde" (like a mayor) of Yerba Buena, which later became San Francisco. In 1868, a company called Spring Valley Water Company bought the water rights for the lake. Over the next few years, they bought all the land around it too. This meant they controlled all of San Francisco's water supply.
However, things changed in 1908. The city decided to build the O'Shaughnessy Dam far away in the Sierra Nevada mountains, creating the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. This new reservoir gave the city control over its own water. Around this time, Spring Valley Water Company sold some of its land around Lake Merced, which is how the golf courses we see today came to be. In 1940, another company bought the last of the land to build the Parkmerced apartment complex.
Lake Merced's Environment
Lake Merced gets its water from an underground spring. Long ago, it even had a natural path that connected it to the ocean, as shown on a map from 1869. Because of this, the amount of salt in the lake's water would change. This means some of the fish living in the lake can live in both salty and fresh water! People still enjoy fishing here today.
For many years, the lake's water level was getting lower, which was not good for the plants and animals that call the lake home. But thanks to better ways of managing the underground water and adding water to the lake sometimes, its water level has been rising since 1990. This helps keep the lake's ecosystem healthy!
Famous Event
On September 13, 1859, a famous duel took place at Lake Merced. In this duel, the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, David S. Terry, fought and killed United States Senator David C. Broderick.
Images for kids
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Aerial view of Lake Merced Park, Fort Funston, and the San Francisco Zoo
