Local History Local History
Those Fabulous Cable-CarsSan Diego’s Cable Railway |
January 1956 Spring 1969 |
Tracks ran from downtown up Bankers Hill
and
through Hillcrest — the powerhouse was located at Fourth and Spruce. Kate Sessions, San Diego’s most famous gardener,
was the first paying rider. “The closed portion of the car is beautifully finished in rare woods. There are stained glass transoms along the top, the windows are richly curtained, all the metal work is nickle plated, and electric bells are provided by which passengers, without leaving their places, may notify the gripman to stop the car. They were gorgeous little palaces on wheels.” |
|
Byways of Old City Park |
July 1955 |
Enlarged map of City Park published in this article. | |
A Barren
Hilltop
|
April 1962 |
George Marston works to create a park
honoring
both the first Spanish mission in California and the Presidio which
stood military guard over San Diego’s early years. In the summer of 1961 California Garden, the San Diego Floral Association’s popular magazine, featured an article on the park with full identification of its plantings. So popular was the article that the printing was soon exhausted. The following spring it was reprinted as a special issue of the San Diego Historical Society Quarterly. |
|
Hatfield the Rainmaker |
winter 1970 |
Early weather modification adventures. |
|
When the Red Lights went out in San Diego: The Little Known Story of San Diego’s “Restricted District” |
Spring 1974 |
The 1915 exposition was being planned
when the city
launched a campaign to clean-up the centers of prostitution in what is
now
the Gaslamp District. Suggestions to reform the women by boarding them
at the “Door of Hope” in City Heights was met by NIMBY backlash. Strict
enforcement
of the “Redlight Abatement Act” in the Stingaree forced the sex
industry
to relocate to rooming houses throughout uptown and midtown. |
|
City
Park 1902-1910:
|
Winter 1979 | In 1979 only the west one sixth of Balboa Park had the curving paths, drives, green lawns and groups of vegetation which the Parsons Plan envisioned. How many now remain? | |
Images of Our Past:
|
Spring 1979 |
Images from San Diego’s past: Cabrillo bridge looking west Ruins of Mission San Diego de Alcalá in 1905 San Diego State in 1933 Sailors at the 1935 Expo |
|
Balboa
Park, 1909-1911:
|
Winter 1982 |
Planning is underway for 1915 exposition when the Buildings and Grounds Committee hires the well-known Olmstead brothers (landscape designers of New York’s Central Park) to design the grounds in the newly renamed Balboa Park. Streetcar investors and land speculators foil the Olmstead’s proposal, hoping to profit from an alternative plan featuring a central site requiring construction of a new streetcar route along Park Boulevard. | |
A
Little
Gem of a Park:
|
Fall 1983 |
John Spreckels initially envisioned Mission Cliff Gardens for the location of Balboa Park’s Organ Pavillion (which celebrated her 90th birthday on New Year’s Day 2005). | |
Do You
Want
|
Fall 1985 |
The timing’s right, it’s a great location, the people will come... and the government will contribute heavily with funding and labor. Let’s party! | |
Bungalow
Courts
|
Spring 1988 |
Includes map
of uptown San Diego with location of bungalow courts and streetcar
lines. |
|
Hospital
Based
|
Fall 1988 |
Seven decades of history covering the medical community. Hillcrest medical timeline. | |
The Making of the Panama-California Exposition |
Winter 1990 |
The name City Park was “ too lackluster” for the site of the Panama-California Exposition. Accordingly, on October 27, 1910, park commissioners Thomas O’Hallaran, Moses Luce and Leory Wright, at a meeting with exposition representatives George Martson, Howard Kutchin and D.C. Collier, chose the name “Balboa Park” for what the San Diego Union called the city’s “pleasure ground.” (October 28, 1910) | |
The
Development
|
Spring 1992 |
Between 1922 to 1932 the discovery of King Tut’s tomb was front-page news. Years of attention influenced designers, artists, architects and merchants. The largest concentration of remaining Egyptian Revival buildings in San Diego is along Park Boulevard between Robinson and University avenues. | |
Mercantile
to MacDonald’s:
|
Summer 1992 |
“In 1900, a single dairy was the only business that existed on University Avenue east of Park Boulevard. The trolley line, laid down on University in 1907, had a tremendous impact on the development of the areas now known as North Park and East San Diego. Although some homes were built along the trolley line, most were constructed a block away in exclusively residential areas. This left space along University Avenue for commercial activity.” | |
Frank P.
Allen,
Jr.:
|
Winter 1996 |
Allen (chief architect of the 1915 Exposition) designed many comercial buildings throughout San Diego including the Park Manor Hotel at Sixth and Redwood in 1925. Two years later he designed a building to house a modern laundry plant for the “Original French Laundry” at Tenth and University. | |
The
Images
|
Spring 1997 |
A wonderful collection of photographs documenting the growth of San Diego. Construction of Cabrillo Bridge/ Different View Female Motorcyclists 1935 Expo’s Palais de Danse Digging Water Mains Mission Brewing Company |
|
Irving J. Gill:
|
Fall 1997 Winter 1998 |
“What idle
or significant sentence will we write with brick and stone, wood,
steel and concrete upon the sensitive page of the earth?” — Irving Gill, May 1916
inscribed on the Vermont Street Bridge Thank you, Irving Gill, for Creating a Sense of Place! |
