Joaquin Miller Park

Joaquin Miller at his home

Coordinates: 37°48′40.21″N 122°11′21.64″W / 37.8111694°N 122.1893444°W Joaquin Miller Park is a large open space park in the Oakland Hills owned and operated by the city of Oakland, California. It is named after early California writer and poet Joaquin Miller, who bought the land in the 1880s, naming it "The Hights" [sic], and lived in the house preserved as the Joaquin Miller House.

Park

The park's 500 acres (2.0 km²) are heavily wooded with coast redwoods, coast live oaks, and pines. Many of the trees were originally planted by Miller himself. The Oakland Hills location provides panoramic views of the San Francisco Bay area. The park features include miles of hiking, biking, and horseback riding trails, an off-leash dog area, an amphitheater, and picnicking.

Amphitheater

Joaquin Miller Park contains the 2,000-seat Woodminster Amphitheater and Cascade, an outdoor amphitheater regularly used to stage both amateur and professional musicals and plays. For many years the Oakland Recreation Department put on popular productions of musical comedies there, three per summer, using mostly amateur performers. Starting in 1967, production of the summer musicals was taken over by the current management.^[1]

The Cascade is the amphitheater's waterfall feature built in 1941 and dedicated to California writers, still with flowing water. It was designed by Howard Gilkey, who also designed the Cleveland Cascade at Lake Merritt (now dry).^[2]

References

1. Woodminster Summer Musicals
2. "Howard Gilkey, designer of the Cleveland Cascade". Friends of the Cleveland Cascade.

External links

• City of Oakland, Joaquin Miller Park website
• Woodminster Musicals website