Urbia Adventure No. 2 is now available at the Randall Museum
With much gratitude to the Friends of the Randall Museum board, families can now pick up Adventure No. 2 at the Randall Museum. To quote their newsletter: “The Randall Museum is happy to promote this new organization and their wonderful adventure in our own Corona Heights location. Using the booklet Wayfinding on Rocky Mountain visitors will learn so much about the Museum, its adjacent park, and about wayfinding. This most excellent adventure guide can be purchased in the Museum’s lobby for $5.”
San Francisco trivia question: Who was the Randall Museum named after?
Answer: Josephine Randall, the first Supervisor of Recreation in San Francisco.
The Randall Museum’s first curator Bert Walker wrote that the Corona Heights location was selected for its natural features valuable “for outdoor nature studies” in the “very heart of the city where young people could spend a happy day in the country.”
In 1928, Josephine Randall proposed that the City buy the 16 acres of Rock Hill for recreation, and in 1941, it was purchased for $27,333 and officially named Corona Heights. Designated as a natural area, the Park hosts a range of native and non-local life and plants– lizards, garter snakes, raccoons, opossum, grasses, wildflowers, birds and butterflies. It also hosts the Randall Museum, named for the woman who relentlessly and successfully fought to establish it.
The Museum opened in 1951 at 199 Museum Way and in succeeding years has developed into a community institution for all ages. Focusing on the culture and environment of the San Francisco Bay Area, it offers arts and sciences classes, a California native animals room, and workshops for children, teens and families. The Randall Theater’s program presents performances by the Young People’s Teen Musical Theater and Musical Theater Works, a student theater. Community groups use the facilities for meetings and lectures. At the Outdoor Learning Environment are Learning Gardens, the Native Plant Garden, and from the observation deck, a panoramic view of San Francisco, the Bay, East Bay hills, and, when the air is clear, the snowcapped Sierra.