Remembering Scottish Gardener John McLaren who tended San Francisco’s Eden: Golden Gate Park
"For over thirty years, he had served as the park superintendent.
John and wife lived in a little lodge nestled in the park."
June 26, 1922
On this day, The Nevada State Journal published an article from San Francisco.
The headline was:
"Laws are changed to help gardener..."
The gardener in question was the famed landscape expert John McLaren.
John came to America from Scotland.
John's legacy is as the creator of San Francisco's Eden: the beautiful Golden Gate Park.
For over thirty years, he had served as the park superintendent.
John and wife lived in a little lodge nestled in the park.
In 1922, John had turned 70. The law said that John would have to go on the pension list and give up his lodge.
But John had performed miracles in the park system in San Francisco.
His book Gardening in California had become a standard textbook.
In recognition of all he had done, San Francisco changed its civil service law so that John would not have to retire.
The board of supervisors voted him a seventieth birthday present of a 50-cent increase in salary.
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