Dr John Hays McLaren (1846–1943) served as superintendent of the

Golden Gate Park Golden Gate Park, located in San Francisco, California, United States, is a large urban park consisting of of public grounds. It is administered by the San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department, which began in 1871 to oversee the development ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, CA for 56 years. Born at

Bannockburn Bannockburn (Scottish Gaelic ''Allt a' Bhonnaich'') is an area immediately south of the centre of Stirling in Scotland. It is part of the City of Stirling. It is named after the Bannock Burn, a stream running through the town before flowing int ...

, near

Stirling Stirling (; sco, Stirlin; gd, Sruighlea ) is a city in central Scotland, northeast of Glasgow and north-west of Edinburgh. The market town, surrounded by rich farmland, grew up connecting the royal citadel, the medieval old town with its me ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

, and worked as a dairyman before studying horticulture at the Edinburgh Royal Botanical Gardens where he worked as an apprentice gardener's helper. He planted grasses anchoring the beach dunes along the Firth of Forth then emigrated to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

in 1870 and worked on the George Howard estate in the San Mateo foothills, then on the

Leland Stanford Amasa Leland Stanford (March 9, 1824June 21, 1893) was an American industrialist and politician. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 8th governor of California from 1862 to 1863 and represented California in the United States Se ...

estate in

Palo Alto Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was estab ...

and planted trees on the Coyote Point on the shore of the Bay. He was friends with

John Muir John Muir ( ; April 21, 1838December 24, 1914), also known as "John of the Mountains" and "Father of the National Parks", was an influential Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, botanist, zoologist, glaciologist, a ...

, and dedicated his life to vigorous advocacy and development of the

, one of the largest public parks in the world, using considerable political skill in addition to his remarkable gardening skill. Appointed Park Superintendent in 1887, he requested thirty thousand dollars a year for park building. One of John McLaren's stipulations before taking the superintendent job was, "There will be no 'Keep off the Grass' signs." His horticultural philosophy was to achieve a natural look, typified in his dislike for statuary, calling them "stookies" and

planting trees Tree-planting is the process of transplanting tree seedlings, generally for forestry, land reclamation, or landscaping purpose. It differs from the transplantation of larger trees in arboriculture, and from the lower cost but slower and less re ...

and shrubs to hide them. He built two windmills to pump water to his park and had the sweepings from San Francisco streets delivered as fertilizer. When ocean waves and wind piled sand on the west end of the park, he began a forty-year effort to pile branches, clippings and laths on the shore to capture sand and build the great berm that now holds the

Great Highway The Great Highway is a road in San Francisco that forms the city's western edge along the Pacific coast. Built in 1929, it runs for approximately next to Ocean Beach. Its southern end is at Skyline Boulevard ( State Route 35) near Lake Merced; ...

. He had a shrewd and aggressive style of management but was so highly respected that, at the age of 70, he was given lifetime tenure over the park and his salary doubled. An avenue in the Seacliff District of San Francisco was named after him during his lifetime, and he was awarded an

honorary doctorate An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hon ...

by the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...

. He is credited with planting two million trees during his lifetime. The McLaren Park in the southern part of San Francisco is named after John McLaren, as is McLaren Lodge in Golden Gate Park, where he lived until his death. East Bay's Tilden Park also has a meadow named after him. A small statue of McLaren was erected in the park which he had hidden away only to be discovered after his death. After his death at the age of 96, McLaren's body lay in state in the

San Francisco City Hall San Francisco City Hall is the seat of government for the City and County of San Francisco, California. Re-opened in 1915 in its open space area in the city's Civic Center, it is a Beaux-Arts monument to the City Beautiful movement that epitomi ...

Rotunda. Afterwards, the funeral cortege drove his casket through Golden Gate Park as a special honor.

Lithia Park, Ashland, Oregon

The small town of

Ashland, Oregon Ashland is a city in Jackson County, Oregon, United States. It lies along Interstate 5 approximately 16 miles (26 km) north of the California border and near the south end of the Rogue Valley. The city's population was 21,360 at the 2020 cen ...

commissioned McLaren to design

Lithia Park Lithia Park is the largest and most central park of Ashland, Oregon, United States. It consists of of forested canyonland around Ashland Creek, stretching from the downtown plaza up toward its headwaters near Mount Ashland. Its name originates f ...

in 1914, just a few years after the park was initially established in 1908. Still considered the "crown jewel" of Ashland, the park covers 100 acres (0.4 km²), extending from the center of town ("The Plaza") up Ashland Creek to the foothills of

Mount Ashland Mount Ashland is the highest peak in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon. It was named for the city of Ashland, located north of the mountain. The Siskiyou Mountains are a subrange of the Klamath Mountains in northwestern California and ...

. It includes two ponds, a Japanese garden, tennis courts, two public greens, a bandshell (outdoor stage) and miles of hiking trails. The name Lithia comes from the natural mineral water in Ashland,

Lithia water Lithia water is defined as a type of mineral water characterized by the presence of lithium salts (such as the carbonate, chloride, or citrate of lithium). Natural lithia mineral spring waters are rare, and there are few commercially bottled lith ...

. The world-famous

Oregon Shakespeare Festival The Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) is a regional repertory theatre in Ashland, Oregon, United States, founded in 1935 by Angus L. Bowmer. The Festival now offers matinee and evening performances of a wide range of classic and contemporary pla ...

now borders the lower portion of the park. The surrounding watershed, which supplies drinking water and hydroelectricity to the city, also includes miles of mountain biking trails. The park is the start and finish for the annual Spring Thaw mountain biking race for pros and amateurs.

Hanchett Residence Park and Hester Park, San Jose, California

In 1907 land developer Lewis Hanchett hired John McLaren to design Hanchett Residence Park on the former 76 acre Agricultural Park bounded by Race Street, Park Avenue, the Alameda and Hester Avenue. John McLaren is credited with creating San Jose's first

Residence park {{Unreferenced, date=June 2010 Residence Parks were residential developments that were built around the early 1900s in North America. Most were built prior to World War I and those that had not already sold most of their lots suffered considerable f ...

that reflected certain architecture standards, sidewalks, street lamps, wide curved streets and gateway landmarks.

San Jose Municipal Rose Garden

In 1931 John McLaren, designer of San Francisco's Golden Gate Park along with Dr J. Horace McFarland, president of the American Rose Society, and City of San Jose's Planning Director Michael H. Antonacci drew up the original plans for San Jose's Municipal Rose Garden.http://friendssjrosegarden.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/1990-Rose-Garden-Map.pdf

Sources

Dickson, Samuel ''Tales of San Francisco'' Stanford University Press 1947 LC # 57-9306

References

External links

Pugsley Silver Medal Biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mclaren, John American horticulturists Scottish horticulturists Golden Gate Park 1846 births 1943 deaths People from San Francisco People from Stirling (council area) Scottish emigrants to the United States Burials at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park