The Giant Pool Where Lifeguards Used Rowboats!
In this narrated YouTube video, Austin Klar recounts the rise and fall of San Francisco’s Fleischacker Pool, once the nation’s largest outdoor salt‑water pool. Opened in spring 1925 beside Ocean Beach, the pool measured 1,000 ft by 150 ft and held 5 million gallons, so large that lifeguards used rowboats to patrol it. The pool was a philanthropic gift from local businessman and banker Herbert Fleischacker, who made his fortune in paper mills. Despite a spectacular opening that drew about 10,000 visitors, the pool never became a lasting attraction because the coastal location brought cold, windy conditions and chronic infrastructure problems. During World War II the military repurposed the pool for training, but after the war attendance never recovered. The site was eventually abandoned, turned into a landfill, then paved over as a parking lot; only the pool‑house façade remains, now a designated historic landmark. The video ends with a call for comments and a prompt to follow for more Bay Area history.
