‘Scottishvillage’exhibitioninSanFrancisco

There was considerable interest in the Stirling area in the opening in early 1939 of a`Scottish village ` exhibit created at a world’s fair held in San Francisco.

Assisting the city’s Mayor Rossi at the event was 93-yearold John McLaren, a native of Bannockburn, who had won worldwide horticultural fame for his achievement in laying out San Franciso’s Golden Gate Park.

Mr McLaren had lived in California for 63 years .

In his younger days, he showed an aptitude for horticulture and trained as a gardener, firstly at Bannockburn House and then at Blair Drummond House and later found work in Edinburgh, which enabled him to attend classes at the Royal Botanic Gardens where he met his wife.

He left Scotland for California in 1872 and was appointed superintendent of Golden Gate Park, a post he held for 53 years.

In 1935, another park in the Bay Area, extending to 400 acres, was opened and named after him.

His speciality, said the Observer, was in landscape gardening but his fame States-side had been won for the conversion, under his guidance, of thousands of acres of shifting sands into a `veritable gigantic botanic garden.’ Mr McLaren was said to be a great personal friend of Sir Harry Lauder. Many of the shrubs, flowers in the Scottish comedian’s garden, at Lauder Ha’ in Strathaven, near Hamilton, were sent from Mr McLaren .

San Franciso’s Golden Gate Exposition opened on February 18, 1939, and ran until September of the following year. It was held on the shoals off Yerba Buena Island partly to celebrate the completion of the Golden Gate and Oakland Bridges.