The Chutes on Haight was a water ride built over the midway of the 1894 California Midwinter Exposition^[1] a year after the exposition ended. It was a short walk from Golden Gate Park’s Children’s Playground^[2]. Flat-bottomed boats were towed up a tramway to the top of a tower while riders took an elevator to the top. They then climbed aboard a boat that went through a camera obscura (a small round building with a rotating mirror on the ceiling that projected an image of a landscape on the walls) before blasting down a 350 foot water flume into a manmade pond. Boats could reach speeds of 60mph which at the time was the only means by which people could experience that speed. For the first year the attraction consisted of the one ride and a food concession stand. The following year more rides were added, including a roller coaster, a 9-gauge railway that could carry 20 people, a merry-go-round and “balloon ascensions” (the precursor to hot air balloon rides). There was also a zoo. Joe, Sally and Johanna were three trained orangutans where Joe would sit at a table smoking a pipe, Sally would sit sipping tea, and baby Johanna would play with her dolls. A pavillion allowed people to touch and feed monkeys. When animals died they were stuffed and put on display in the Chutes Museum.

Chutes on Haight was closed in March 1902 to make way for residential development, and the entire park was moved to Fulton between 10th and 11th. The Chutes on Fulton included Gillo’s Artesto: San Francisco’s first movie house. There was also a maze with doors both fixed and moving, a shooting gallery with .22 rifles using live ammunition, and a ferris wheel. The Chutes on Fulton survived the 1906 Earthquake and Fires^[3]. A roller rink was added later that year. The park closed in November 1909 with only the roller rink remaining. The park moved once again – this time to the block of Fillmore/Turk/Webster/Eddy. The Chutes on Fillmore existed until May 29, 1911 when a fire caused by a faulty water heater burned the entire complex down. 

A new water ride would reappear at Ocean Beach^[3A] in 1921. Originally called Chutes at the Beach, it would later become part of Playland at the Beach^[4]. This last City water ride was ultimately dismantled in 1950.

^[1] 1894 Midwinter Exposition: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=4428

^[2] Golden Gate Park: story coming April 4th 

^[3] 1906 Earthquake and Fires: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=2849 

^[4] Playland at the Beach: story coming August 16th