The West Sonoma County Union High School District will pay for the removal of plaques with ties to racism from two of its campuses. The three plaques in
Obscure SF: Remembering the earthquake-proof observatory at Golden Gate Park that fell in 15 years
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The base is all that remains of Sweeny Observatory on top of Strawberry Hill in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco on Mar. 8, 2021. The observatory was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake.Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE
Thomas U. Sweeny may be the first person to have a Golden Gate Park landmark named after him, and he was certainly the first to make a show of it.
Sweeny, who made a fortune in gold-mining and buying property in San Francisco’s Inner Sunset, cast himself as a modest man of the people at a dedication ceremony 130 years ago for his newly built panoramic viewpoint atop Strawberry Hill: the Sweeny Observatory.