Historical Snapshot #3

Today we visited the Randall Museum in Corona Heights Park just a mile or so from our apartment. The park is located on a hill that was once blasted apart to produce bricks for Gary Brother's Quarry in the late nineteenth century. The roads that were built to transport the bricks later became residential after the quarry was shut down and houses began to line the streets for the eye popping views of the city.

The Randall Museum was named after Josephine Randall who was the first Superintendent of Parks and Recreation for the city of San Francisco. Josephine earned her Master's degree in zoology from Stanford in 1910 and organized one of the first Girl Scout Troops in the United States. She dreamt up the idea of an educational and cultural children's museum in the 1930's at Camp Mather in Yosemite with a man who later worked for the city's park system. The museum, called the Junior Museum, was originally housed in an old jail and came to its' present site in 1951. She had hoped to create a "spot in the heart of the city where young people could spend a day in the country."

The contemporary Randall houses a combination of interactive arts, crafts, and natural science displays. The first curiosity upon entering is a puppet stage with curtain and a tall rack filled with animal puppets. I tried to engage Zealand with a gangly legged frog but he wanted nothing of it. He was too eager to explore this newfound place.

To the right of the puppet stage is a reconstructed earthquake refugee shack used by displaced locals after the 1906 earthquake. I tried to take a good peak but zippy pants was off and running toward the live animal exhibit. The Randall is home to over 100 animals who are unable to live in the wild. San Francisco's very own Noah's Ark.

There were turtles, bunnies, roosters, a barn owl, a hawk, quail, robin, squirrel, snakes, frogs, fish, bees, and probably many more that I am forgetting or missed while chasing a certain someone we all know and love.

On the way to a room with a model train we passed several rooms that hold woodworking and art classes. I love how this place brings together art, science, and the natural world in one big workshop to play and experiment in.

In between exhibits Zealand would dart outside and there before us was the city laid out flashing pinks, greens, blues from all of the diverse buildings Victorian and otherwise. In the far off distance you could see tall, edgy buildings from the financial district and a section of the Bay Bridge.

The sun was out today and it all felt very stimulating and lucky. Zealand got to pet a bunny (more like grab its' face), play with rubber turtles, have his first go at Legos (which were part of an earthquake stimulation exhibit), and roam around in the treehouse playroom for toddlers. It was all very hands on as the founders had intended.

How very fortunate for us that Josephine Randall cared enough to fight for this space on behalf of San Franciscan children. Her legacy lives on.