On a rocky hill between the Castro and Haight-Ashbury sits one of San Francisco's least expensive family outings: the Randall Museum, where admission is free. The city-run science, nature and arts museum is celebrating three-quarters of a century on Corona Heights. It is inviting visitors to share how the place shaped their families, and in some cases their careers.

From an old jail to a quarry hill

The museum began in 1937 as the "Junior Museum," in an old city jail on land that is now part of City College of San Francisco. A 1947 recreation and parks bond paid for a new building designed by William Merchant on Corona Heights. That hill had been a rock quarry until the 1906 earthquake, when kilns on its slope exploded and collapsed. The new museum opened in 1951. Mayor Elmer Robinson dedicated it on Sept. 23 of that year as the Josephine D. Randall Junior Museum.

Josephine Dows Randall earned a master's degree in zoology from Stanford in 1913. She organized one of the first Girl Scout troops in the country and became San Francisco's first superintendent of recreation, a post she held from 1926 to 1952. During that time she secured hundreds of acres for playgrounds. According to the museum, she wanted a nature museum for children that "would foster a love of science, natural history, and the arts."

What's inside

  • Live animals: native animals are shown in habitat exhibits, and Saturday "Meet an Animal Ambassador" sessions run late morning.
  • Model trains: the Golden Gate Model Rail Road Club has been a tenant in the basement since 1961. On "Junior Engineer Day," held the third Saturday of every odd month, kids get to run its HO-scale trains.
  • Exhibits and art: exhibits cover oceans and earthquakes. Charles Sowers' kinetic sculpture "Windswept" moves with the wind on the building's facade.
  • Classes: woodshop, ceramics, art and STEM classes for kids, teens and adults, plus day camps for ages 6 to 12 when school is out.

The museum closed in 2015 for a $6 million renovation and reopened on Feb. 11, 2018. The renovation added exhibit space and replaced what a former director called "an asphalt moat" with an outdoor learning area.

Visiting

The museum is at 199 Museum Way and is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays bring a drop-in Saturday Science workshop at 10:30 a.m., the animal ambassador session at 11:30 a.m. and drop-in Afternoon Art from 1 to 4 p.m. Café Josephine serves coffee and lunch on a patio with city views. Afterward, the short climb to the top of Corona Heights Park is worth it for one of the best views of downtown.