There was a hidden gem in Balboa Park for many years. A
secret parking space that few knew about.
If you were to drive on Park Blvd and turn on Presidents Way
to enter the main park area, then just before the Organ
Pavilion parking lot, you'd see a tiny little street heading
down a steep hill and disappearing behind trees and canyon.
You might have even noticed a street sign saying "Gold Gulch
Way" or something.
Few people who noticed this street dared to enter it, and
many that did turned around when it looked
less-than-promising. But for the brave few, this led to a
terrific parking spot: The Gold Gulch Parking Lot!
The Gold Gulch Parking Lot was down in Gold Gulch Canyon
next to where the San Diego Police once kept the horses for
the mounted policemen they employed in the park. Walking out
of the canyon by going back the way you came on Gold Gulch
Way wasn't fun, but there was a fairly easy paved path
leading from Gold Gulch up to Zorro Garden, right next to
the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center and the Natural History
Museum.
To the uninitiated, this looked like a terrible parking
spot, but for those of us in the know, it was the most
reliable place to find convenient parking.
Some years ago, I ventured down into Gold Gulch to find (to
my horror) that the parking spaces had all been removed. It
was a very sad day.
Gold Gulch was developed as a gold mining camp for the 1935
California Pacific International Exposition. There was a
simulated gold mine, a dance hall, saloon, sheriff's office,
shooting gallery, Chinese laundry, and a bank with
iron-barred windows. All these are long gone. (Crooks)
The Chinese Laundry would probably come off as politically
incorrect these days, but it's a highly accurate detail.
Large numbers of Chinese migrants flocked to California, or
*Gum Saan* (golden mountain) as they sometimes called it.
Running a Laundry service proved to be a highly profitable,
though low-prestige business that Chinese entrepreneurs took
full advantage of.
I read in *The Chinese in America* (Chang) that at some
point, huge ships would take loads of dirty laundry from San
Francisco to China where they would be laundered and then
returned. Crazy, right?
## Sources
Crooks, Pamela, "Discover Balboa Park: A Complete Guide to
America's Greatest Urban Park". Ridgway Park Publishing,
2000
Chang, Iris, "The Chinese in America: A Narrative History",
Penguin Books, Reprint edition 2004
