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Tip of the Week: April 28, 2007

Balboa Park comprises 1200 acres in the middle of San Diego 's urban area. Everyone knows about the cultural institutions in the park. And we know that the Zoo is just a short walk to the northeastern most side of the park.

For us, the roads less traveled in Balboa Park can really give you the real sense of what a wonderful refuge it is. There are many paths, trails and interesting places away from the crowds that you can explore.

Down on President's Way at the southern end of the park, just east of the Organ Pavilion parking lot and just west of Park Blvd., is Gold Gulch Canyon road. It looks like it goes nowhere but there are few neat things about this little road.

Gold Gulch was originally developed to re-create California 's Gold Mining heyday during the California-Pacific International Exposition in Balboa Park (1935-1936).

The event planners went all out for the Exposition in an attempt to draw people to Balboa Park. According to the San Diego Historical Society Journal, the planners included "unpainted shacks, an iron-barred bank, a Chinese restaurant and laundry, a dance and a music hall, and a dummy suspended in midair from a hangtown tree. "Barkers" lured "drugstore cowboys" to a "shootin' gallery," where, if they were lucky, they could put the lights out.

But wait, there's more!

"A nudist colony of about fifty members read books, played handball and ate vegetables in Zoro Gardens at the northern tip of Gold Gulch. Patrons of the Gulch were quick in discovering knotholes in the wood fence separating the two attractions. Compared to Gold Gulch Gertie, who was arrested for impersonating Lady Godiva, and two dancers in concessions along the Midway, the nudists were models of decorum.

Chief of Police George M. Sears, saw that the women wore brassieres and G-strings. The men, who were past their prime, had long beards and wore trunks. The "Zoro" in Zoro Gardens was the name of a bogus sun god whose full name was supposed to be Zoroaster, the name of a Persian prophet (660 B.C.- 583 B.C.?) who was definitely not a sun god."

If this historical subject grabs your interest, as it did ours, read the article from Time Magazine reported on Monday, June 10, 1935: "Miracle of 1935" We've been walking through the park every morning and never knew that Gold Gulch had such a colorful history!

Now, Gold Gulch is a quiet place that is hardly reminiscent of the hoopla of 1935. Walking through or driving by, without a sense of the history, you'd never know that so much went on in this little ravine. All you'll find is some magnificent horses and a secret parking lot.

...the history blew away with the leaves.