“Ground is Broken on New Campus” in the 1940 Franciscan” yearbook inset called Strife No Sense (May 15, 1940), page [7]

A groundbreaking ceremony for the Lake Merced campus was held in November 1939. Paul Scholten (dark hair with glasses in top left image), then a freshman described the gorge area that became the playing fields as “a swamp with willow trees.” San Francisco State President Alexander Roberts and Student Body President Clifford Worth tramped around the site consisting of sand dunes with lots of trees and underbrush. San Francisco State had a junior WPA (the NYA), and students earned $ .25 per hour to chop down all of the trees in February 1940. Scholten, the Gater editor in 1943 who later served as a gynecologist at the Student Health Center, chopped down the first tree with another student. Later, Roberts came along with a photographer and had his photograph taken with the axe. On April 1, 1940, one hundred and fifty labors were hired to begin construction of temporary buildings. Landscaping to level and fill the stream canyon commenced a year later in the northern portion of the property. All of the native vegetation was destroyed in the process, and the stream was routed underground to discharge into the northeast arm of Lake Merced. Landscaping of the gorge resulted in three level areas descending westward. However, with the United States entrance into World War II, construction stalled for five years due to shortages of supplies and equipment.