A Gift of Wind and Water

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Long before Golden Gate Park was the green oasis we see today, it was a landscape of shifting sand dunes. To transform this wilderness, the city needed water, and that's where the Murphy Windmill came in. Built between 1905 and 1907 as a gift from banker Samuel G.

Murphy, this towering structure helped pump the water necessary to make the park bloom. It's commonly believed to be the largest windmill of its kind in the world, standing as a massive piece of functional art in the southwest corner of the park. While it's a symbol of early 20th-century engineering, it's also a living landmark; if you visit on a weekend or holiday, you can often see its great sails spinning against the San Francisco sky.

Updated June 2026