In 1881, former San Francisco mayor, Adolph Sutro, purchased most of the western headlands of San Francisco with the intention of erecting a splendid baths and recreation site along the Pacific Ocean. Five years later, Sutro Baths, a fabulous, three-acre, glass-enclosed public baths facility opened with much fanfare, creating a veritable urban oasis seven miles from the city's center. With its vivid colors and wonderful detail, this rare color lithograph recalls the energy and excitement that surely pervaded this impressive complex. Grand in promotion as well as scale, the Sutro Baths were advertised by large billboards such as this monumental work, composed of six individually printed pieces, which have been assembled in registration and glued together to form the final work.
In addition to bathing, diners could choose from three restaurants that could accommodate 1,000 people at a seating, and there were natural history exhibits, galleries of sculptures, paintings, tapestries and artifacts from Aztec, Mexican, Egyptian, Syrian, Chinese and Japanese cultures. An amphitheater, seating up to 3,700 people, provided a variety of stage shows. For all the glamour and excitement, the success of Sutro Baths was short lived. By 1937, Sutro’s grandson realized the baths were no longer commercially successful so he converted the large tank into an ice skating rink. The Sutro Baths never regained its popularity and the ice-skating revenue was not enough to maintain the enormous building, so in 1966 the site was sold to land developers who began demolition so they could build high-rise apartments. A fire quickly finished the demolition work and thus ended the eighty year history of the Sutro Baths.