Foreword
Welcome to San Diego Memories: A Photographic History of the 1800s through the 1930s. It is being released in 2018 in a partnership between The San Diego Union-Tribune on its 150th anniversary and the San Diego History Center on its 90th. The San Diego History Center is the region’s repository of memories, written, collected, and recorded, from the county’s earliest residents as well as immigrants from other states and nations. One of the History Center’s crown jewels is the collection of negatives, prints, and films—more than 2.5 million images, many taken by Union-Tribune photographers for more than 100 years—safely preserved and curated in the basement of the Casa de Balboa in Balboa Park. The History Center’s archives are open to the public and visitors can while away the hours examining photos and other records of their neighborhoods, businesses, and landscapes. The oldest photograph dates from about 1869, coincidentally the very moment the city and region were entering the modern era. As Richard Henry Dana said in his 1840 account of his visit to San Diego, Two Years Before the Mast , “In the hands of an enterprising people, what a country this might be.”
San Diego had three great attributes: As Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo declared in his log in 1542, San Diego’s bay was “cerrado y muy bueno” (closed and very good). Next came the climate, never too hot or too cold for long, where virtually anything would grow if you planted it and added water. The third was the border. San Diego’s location at the southwest corner of the United States placed it at the strategic nexus of North America and the Pacific Rim—the U.S. gateway to Latin America and Asia.
Progress, however, wasn’t inevitable. Transportation was difficult over the mountains and deserts. Water was as scarce then as it is today—an average of only 10 inches of rain per year. San Diego lacked natural resources necessary for major industrial production. Somehow San Diegans overcame these impediments by building their own railroad and planning a freeway system; erecting dams and aqueducts; courting the Navy and developing tourist attractions with the hope that sailors and sightseers would come, stay, and prosper.
This collection of photographs and newspaper front pages represents the formative period of San Diego. Many of its major institutions, development patterns, industries, and demographic DNA were set by the outset of World War II.
But growth did not proceed on a straight line upward. There were booms and busts. Industries came and went. Los Angeles quickly outpaced San Diego in population and power. Local politics often revolved around “smokestacks (industry) versus geraniums (beauty)”—a phrase that grew out of a 1917 mayoral campaign.
These black-and-white images tell the first chapter of San Diego’s modern era. Enjoy the formal clothing, trains, planes, and automobiles. But look into the eyes of the San Diegans pictured. You may see yourself in them—hopeful, thoughtful, responsible, and fun loving.
— Roger Showley
A third-generation San Diegan who retired in 2018 after 44 years as a staff writer at The San Diego Union-Tribune
2 SAN DIEGO MEMORIES
INTRODUCTION 3 Table of Contents Maritime ..................................................... 29 Military ....................................................... 39 Public Service ............................................. 51 Transportation ............................................. 67 Commerce and Industry ............................... 87 Disasters................................................... 113 Recreation and Celebration ........................ 123 Community Memories ................................ 163
Chapter introductions by Roger Showley
San Diego County was settled by Native Americans for thousands of years before Europeans arrived in the 16th century. There are no written records of that period but archaeologists and anthropologists believe the first humans may have populated North America, starting about 20,000 years ago and perhaps much earlier than that. The first artifacts found in San Diego date to about 10,000 years ago. The Kumeyaays’ creation stories say they were here from the beginning of time. By 1542 the local population is estimated at as many as 30,000 people, spread among about 80 villages.
San Diego Through the Years
1868
1851
Spanish explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo arrives and names the bay San Miguel.
City Park (Balboa Park) is set aside; The San Diego Union founded.
1885
1602
Sebastian Vizcaíno, also from Spain, renames it San Diego. 1769
Father Junípero Serra founds the Mission San Diego de Alcalá; San Diego Presidio built. 1796
Fort Guijarros is built at Ballast Point on Point Loma. 1803
The Battle of San Diego between Spanish soldiers and the U.S. Navy vessel Lelia Byrd . 1822
San Diego formally comes under Mexican rule and soldiers begin settling in Old Town.
1833
Mexico secularizes the California missions.
1835
San Diego’s first elected mayor and others take office. Richard Henry Dana visits San Diego and describes it in Two Days Before the Mast
1846
The U.S. declares war on Mexico; seizes California as well as San Diego; Battle of San Pasqual. The Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty of 1848 sets the boundary one marine league (3.4 miles) south of the southernmost point of San Diego Bay.
Antonio Garra leads last Native American revolt, in Warner’s Ranch, executed, 1852.
1870
San Diego Chamber of Commerce founded.
1887–1890
Coronado, Escondido, National City and Oceanside incorporated. 1542
1850
California becomes a state; San Diego city and county incorporated. William Heath Davis and partners buy 160 acres in “New San Diego,” the land west of Front Street downtown.
1867
Alonzo Horton buys 800 acres east of the Davis tract; the county seat moves from Old Town to downtown in 1871.
The first railroad link to the east sets off a two-year real estate boom. 1888 Hotel del Coronado opens.
1875
Five Native American reservations set aside in San Diego County, thirteen others established by 1931, making this the most for any county in the country.
1898
Spanish-American War prompts construction of fortifications at Fort Rosecrans in Point Loma.
1908
San Diegans greet the “Great White Fleet” anchored off Coronado. John Nolen submits his San Diego: A Comprehensive Plan for Its Development .
1903
Marine biological station (Scripps Institution of Oceanography) opens, joins University of California’s in 1912.
1905
USS Bennington blows up in San Diego Bay, killing sixty-six sailors.
1912
Naval air base opens on North Island.
Industrial Workers of the World demonstrate against free-speech restrictions.
Vice squad clears prostitution from Stingaree (today’s Gaslamp Quarter).
1911–1912
Chula Vista, El Cajon and La Mesa incorporated.
1916
1925
Mission Beach Amusement Center (Belmont Park) opens.
1928
Rainmaker Charles Hatfield hired to end drought; disastrous floods ensue.
1931
San Diego State College moves to Montezuma Mesa.
San Diego Historical Society (now San Diego History Center) founded.
1938
President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicates the Civic Center (today’s County Administration Center) on Pacific Highway.
1910
U.S. Grant Hotel opens.
1915
Panama-California Exposition opens in Balboa Park.
1917 “Smokestacks” candidate
Louis Wilde beats “geraniums” candidate George W. Marston for mayor. U.S. enters World War I.
1927
Charles Lindbergh flies his San Diego-built Spirit of St. Louis solo and nonstop across the Atlantic. Lindbergh Field is dedicated in 1928.
1936
Pacific Coast League Padres move from Los Angeles.
1935
California Pacific International Exposition opens in Balboa Park.
Reuben H. Fleet moves his Consolidated Aircraft from Buffalo.
INTRODUCTION 5
PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE AND SAN DIEGO HISTORY CENTER
Views and Street Scenes
Historically, San Diego County was a rural place. The Native American population survived on a diet of fish, game, berries, and acorns. The Spanish and Mexican period featured ranches with thousands of cattle, whose hides were cured and exported to markets on the East Coast. Into the late nineteenth century, homesteaders planted citrus groves and farmed the backcountry. Newcomers tried their hand at raising grapes, collecting honey, mining for gold, drilling for oil, even bottling spring water as the “Water of Life.” San Diego’s Chamber of Commerce, founded in 1870, marketed San Diego through exhibits at world’s fairs. In an age of small business and local banks, it was tough to make a buck—except in real estate. Land speculation was a booming business and the newspapers were filled with advertisements of the next place to live—until the inevitable bust crushed get-rich schemes.
San Diego County’s growth rate until 1940 was sporadic. The first census in 1850 counted only 798 residents, not counting the Native American population. It rose to 4,300 in 1860, 5,000 in 1870, and 8,600 in 1880. The railroad boom of the 1880s boosted it to 35,000, where it stayed for another 10 years. Growth resumed to take it to 61,700 in 1910, 112,000 in 1920, 209,700 in
1930, and 289,300 in 1940. Over that same period Los Angeles County rose from 3,530 in 1850 to 2.8 million in 1940. The state as a whole increased from 92,600 to 6.9 million. The city of San Diego has always been the county’s biggest municipality, comprising 70 percent of the county total in 1940. By 1900, there were four other incorporated cities: National City (1887), Escondido (1888), Oceanside (1888), and Coronado (1890). As of 1940, there were three more: Chula Vista (1911), El Cajon (1912), and La Mesa (1912).
Architecturally, San Diego was not much to look at when it was incorporated in 1850. Alonzo Horton, who arrived in 1867, said he wouldn’t pay $5 for Old Town. Visitors complained of the dust and fleas. Residents made use of local resources and constructed buildings out of adobe brick.
With the arrival of railroad service to the east in 1885, investors built lavish Victorian mansions and business blocks, best seen today in downtown’s Gaslamp Quarter and pockets of Queen Anne–style homes in Bankers Hill, Chula Vista, Escondido, and National City. A radical turn in design occurred in the aftermath of the PanamaCalifornia Exposition of 1915–16 in Balboa Park. New York architect Bertram Goodhue conceived of a “city in miniature,” in
the elaborate Spanish Colonial–style of eighteenth-century Mexico. The California Tower was one of San Diego’s first great civic buildings and remains an iconic structure more than a century later. This nostalgia for a mythical past led land developers and architects throughout Southern California to build homes in the Mission Revival–style— red tile roofs, stucco walls, and courtyards. This indoor-outdoor lifestyle is rediscovered by each generation of builders, including today’s developers of master-planned communities.
One other feature of San Diego is a varied landform. River valleys, canyons, and mesas divide the county into distinctive neighborhoods that interrupt what would otherwise be an unbroken sprawl of suburbs fanning out from the center. San Diego County’s geography results in one of the most varied climates in America. It also has one of the longest lists of endangered species—thirty-three species of animals, thirty-three species of plants. The county is also very large. At 4,525 square miles, it is large enough to encompass both Delaware and Rhode Island. When it was created in 1850, it was even larger, 39,400 square miles, taking in Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Imperial Counties.
VIEWS AND STREET SCENES 7 CHAPTER ONE
OPPOSITE: Broadway looking east from 3rd Avenue in downtown San Diego in 1928. It was San Diego’s ceremonial street for parades, civic celebrations, and other big events. The U.S. Grant Hotel, the Holzwasser department store (later Walker Scott), and San Diego Trust and Savings Bank are seen in the left side of the frame. Horton Plaza is pictured at right. SAN DIEGO HISTORY CENTER (#2224)
ABOVE: Tent City with Hotel del Coronado in the distance, circa 1904. It featured a grocery store, soda fountain, theater, police department, and a daily newspaper. The Coronado Shores condo towers occupy the site today. SAN DIEGO HISTORY CENTER (#858)
OPPOSITE: Aerial view looking over downtown San Diego, the harbor, and North Island in 1911, the year voters approved bonds to develop the waterfront. SAN DIEGO HISTORY CENTER (#83:14740-34)
RIGHT: A horse-drawn buggy passing the first U.S. lighthouse at Point Loma in the 1910s. Opened in 1855, it was supplanted in 1891 by the present lighthouse to avoid frequent fogs that obscured signals to ships. The lighthouse is part of the Cabrillo National Monument, which was set aside in 1913 and where a statue to Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, similar to the Statue of Liberty, was originally proposed. SAN DIEGO HISTORY CENTER (#23164)
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ABOVE: Women wear gas masks and protective clothing during a training exercise at Camp Kearny during World War I. SAN DIEGO HISTORY CENTER (#90:17881)
TOP: U.S. Army pilots pose with six biplanes at North Island in October 1913. SAN DIEGO HISTORY CENTER (#OP 1375)
OPPOSITE: Officers and crew of the San Diego. Formerly the California, it was renamed the San Diego on September 1, 1914. On July 18, 1918, the ship sank off Long Island after an explosion near the port side engine room. One theory during later investigations is that the ship struck a mine left by a German submarine. SAN DIEGO HISTORY CENTER (#7284-A)
RIGHT: The fr ont page of the Evening Tribune from May 7, 1914, reports a German U-boat torpedoed the British liner Lusitania off the coast of Ireland, killing 1,198 people. The incident sparked international outrage and added to the pressure to bring the U.S. into World War I three years later. UNION-TRIBUNE
42 SAN DIEGO MEMORIES
RIGHT: Switchboard operators at the Merchants Central City Credit Association, 625 Broadway, 1931. SAN DIEGO HISTORY CENTER (#SENSOR 6-194-A)
OPPOSITE: Children gather around a shoe house modeled from the Mother Goose nursery rhyme at Rest Haven Preventorium for Children, 1937. Under the direction of the San Diego Tuberculosis Association, Rest Haven operated an open air camp on 54th Street in City Heights from 1920 to 1951 for children threatened by tuberculosis and other diseases.
SAN DIEGO HISTORY CENTER (#SENSOR 21-68)
BELOW RIGHT: From left, firefighters Sandy Baker, Tim Williams, John Cross, and Joe Smith from the San Diego Fire Department stand by a fire truck in 1927. Prior to 1951 desegregation orders, African-American firefighters were limited to working at Station 19 at 36th Street and Ocean Boulevard in southeastern San Diego. SAN DIEGO HISTORY CENTER (#79:242)
BELOW: Deputy sheriffs examine a destroyed slot machine taken in a raid in 1936. SAN DIEGO HISTORY CENTER, UNION-TRIBUNE COLLECTION (#UT8284-92)
64 SAN DIEGO MEMORIES
ABOVE: A roadster in front of City Chevrolet, 1040 Union Street, 1935. SAN DIEGO HISTORY CENTER (#SENSOR 5-687)
OPPOSITE: Ruth Alexander prepares to start the motor of a biplane at Ryan Flying School. She was the holder of the world’s altitude record for light power planes in July 1930 and was the first female glider instructor in the country. Three months after her record flight, she died in a plane crash in Point Loma on September 18, 1930, shortly after taking off from Lindbergh Field. SAN DIEGO HISTORY CENTER, UNION-TRIBUNE COLLECTION (#UT1101)
RIGHT: A pilot and a man holding a mail sack stand near a U.S. mail truck parked in front of a Western Air Express plane at Lindbergh Field, circa 1930. SAN DIEGO HISTORY CENTER (#SENSOR 17-34)
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RECREATION AND CELEBRATION 161
ABOVE: Willis “Shorty” Hogue (left) and Archie Moore square off for a boxing match on December 29, 1939, at the Coliseum Athletic Club at 1485 E Street. Hogue won on points due to low blows thrown by Moore in the fifth round. SAN DIEGO HISTORY CENTER, UNION-TRIBUNE COLLECTION (#UT16418-1)
LEFT: Mission Beach and boardwalk looking north, circa 1937. The man leaning against the wall wearing a hat is Dick “Storm Surf” Taylor. Dorian Paskowitz and George Stanley are also identified in the view. Bill Rumsey is seated in a chair. SAN DIEGO HISTORY CENTER (#80:5582)
CLOCKWISE
FROM TOP LEFT:
The Culver brothers, beekeepers and date farmers, circa 1924. CULVER FAMILY
Grilling up some lunch at Black’s Beach, north of La Jolla Shores, September 30, 1919.
O’NEILL-MULLER COLLECTION
William F. Down adorned with seaweed, with sons Arthur and Frank at Ocean Beach, circa 1920. CAROL DOWN HUNT
Refugia
164 SAN DIEGO MEMORIES
“Ruth” Lujan. ARMANDO ROMERO
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT:
Boy Scouts Jessie F. Macbeth and Frank Forsberg in Point Loma, circa 1930. MACBETH AND HENKELS FAMILIES
Men’s Bible Class at the First English Lutheran Church of San Diego, located at 1320 2nd Avenue, 1908.
FIRST LUTHERAN CHURCH OF SAN DIEGO
Margaret Prunk (Riddle) Jorgensen at Mission Beach, 1932. GENIE RIDDLE BROWN
Howard Smith on the Walker in San Diego Bay, March 7, 1920. DARYL HERN
A portrait of Abbie Johnson Giddings taken for the cover of the promotional program for the 1933 San Diego State College football season. DEBORAH KELLY
COMMUNITY MEMORIES 165
