Lake Merced Park

Lake Merced Park is a large, freshwater lake system encircled by a four-and-a-half-mile paved trail in the southwestern corner of San Francisco. While the park is now a center for rowing, fishing, and birdwatching, its landscape was once defined by its remote location on the city’s rural outskirts. This isolation drew prominent figures to its shores in the mid-nineteenth century to settle disputes outside the reach of urban law.