When Fleishhacker Pool opened in San Francisco a century ago, every fact and figure looked like a misprint.
The dimensions were 1,000 feet by 150 feet at its widest point, larger than an aircraft carrier deck. The pool held more than 5 million gallons of ocean-fed water, equivalent to more than seven Olympic swimming pools. And the facility was so spacious — a landmark to planes flying into local airports — that it required its lifeguards to work in rowboats.
There was just one problem: The location. The nation’s largest outdoor pool, donated by millionaire banker Herbert Fleishhacker, was just steps from Ocean Beach in one of the coldest corners of a city where summer highs average in the 60s…