The Rideout Memorial Fountain – The Music Concourse, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California

The Music Concourse, a landscaped basin between the California Academy of Sciences and the de Young Museum, is a vital civic and cultural space within Golden Gate Park, hosting free concerts on Sundays during the summer and serving as a respite and picnic spot year-round for visitors to nearby cultural facilities. At its centre is a fountain, dedicated in 1924, made possible with a $10,000 gift from Corrine Rideout. The statue in the fountain’s centre depicts the unlikely scene of a saber-toothed tiger wrestling a serpant.

Corrine Rideout was the widow of banker Norman Rideout. Mr. Rideout came from Maine to Oroville, California and opened a bank. He successfully opened five more in the central valley of California. After his death in 1907 his widow sold them to A.P. Giannini, founder of the Bank of Italy later to become the Bank of America. The cast stone pool was designed by architect Herbert A. Schmidt. The statue is by M. Earl Cummings. The original intention was for the statue to be of bronze, but the budget did not allow for this.