Sunset Cliffs Natural Park

About this audio guide

This guide to Sunset Cliffs Natural Park in San Diego starts with buried stone footings just off the trail, the last trace of a lavish gift sporting goods tycoon Albert Spalding poured into these cliffs in nineteen fifteen: pebbled stairways, arched footbridges, palm-thatched shelters, and a saltwater pool that refilled with the tide. You'll hear how Spalding's one condition on the gift played out, how developer John Mills spent even more trying to fix what came after, and how officials eventually declared the structures unsafe. It follows the site through decades of change before the city finally protected it as parkland in nineteen eighty-three. Look for the cobblestone anchors still buried in the ground around you.