John McLaren Park is a park in southeastern San Francisco. At, McLaren Park is the third largest park in San Francisco by area, after Golden Gate Park and Presidio. The park is surrounded mostly by the Excelsior, Crocker-Amazon, Visitacion Valley, Portola and University Mound neighborhoods.HistoryJohn McLaren Park was once a part of Rancho Cañada de Guadalupe la Visitación y Rodeo Viejo, an 1840 land grant which included much of present-day San Bruno Mountain, the city of Brisbane, Guadalupe Valley, and Visitacion Valley. The then-governor of Mexico (including present-day California), Juan Bautista Alvarado granted what is now known as John McLaren Park to the local authorities in 1840.In 1905, subdivisions of the land grant were drawn up and Daniel Burnham issued the Burnham Plan for San Francisco, which recommended that the land where John McLaren and Bayview Parks are today should be reserved for park use, as residents in the southern part of the City were considered inadequately served by access to park space. Burnham's Report called for several parks near Visitacion Valley, including one he named Visitacion Park, which would become Bayview Park and Candlestick Point State Recreation Area; and one he named University Mound Park, which occupied part of the land that would later became John McLaren Park. In the wake of the 1906 earthquake and fire, rather than implement Burnham's plan, city officials expediently rebuilt the city using the grids that had been previously laid out.
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