USA > California > San Diego County > San Diego > City of San Diego and San Diego County : the birthplace of California, Volume I > Part 19
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"I went to Imperial Valley. It was called New River Valley, then,-that was in 1893. I organized an expedition to the valley, at a cost to me of $500, and took some pictures of that great region. Then in San Diego I hired the old Isis Theatre, at a rate of $75, got a band, which cost me $50, and gathered an audience of San Diego people. I told them to go out there and locate, when they could get land free from the government, instead of waiting until it was worth $300 an acre. D. C. Reed spoke there, too, and Governor Murphy, of Arizona, who was in town at the time.
"And just a few years the rush to Imperial Valley actually did take place, and I saw land being sold there for $300 an acre.
"I claim to be the father of Imperial Valley, and I think the title's rightfully mine.
"From the past one can see a little ahead into the future, and because of what I have seen, I know what is to come,-and I tell you San Diego will be no city,-it will be a metropolis!"
There are many living in 1921, of course, who were in San Diego at the time of the "great boom," which began in 1886 and lasted until the winter of 1887-8. It is to be doubted, however, that many can tell a more interesting story of that strange period than Judge Thomas J. Hayes, who came here before the boom started and has remained a resident of San Diego ever since. Judge Hayes was a man of about 35 years at the time. He had been practicing law in the little town of Hiawatha, Kansas, and was county at- torney there. His health began to fail, and the family doctor advised him to seek an outdoor life, preferably in Southern California, whose climatic advantages had attained some fame throughout the rest of the nation at that time. So Hayes, half-sick and badly worried about his condition, set forth for Southern California. He went first to Los Angeles, but soon became "homesick" there, as he relates it. and after a short stay decided to come on to San Diego. The famous steamer Orizaba brought him to the Harbor of the Sun. As the Orizaba pushed her way past Point Loma on the morning of Sept. 28, and the beauties of the port and surrounding country were spread before the passengers' eyes, the young Kansas attorney decided at once that "this was the finest location for a city" that he had ever seen. His decision to remain here was half-made at that time. It did not take long to complete the resolution.
At the wharf was a "hack," driven by W. W. Bowers, who ran the old Florence Hotel, now enlarged and remodeled into the Casa Loma, at Fir Street, between Third and Fourth streets.
"The Florence Hotel in those days," said Judge Hayes in a recent talk with the writer, "was then, way out of town, or so it seemed. I remember that when we got up to the Snyder corner. Fifth and D streets. as it was called then, I said to Bowers. 'Where are we going?' He indicated the location of the Florence Hotel. and I told him that I wanted to stop in town. He told me to come along with him, saying that it would be all right, adding that it was like the road to the New Jerusalem-somewhat hard to traverse but very nice when you got there. We went on and reached the
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hotel, and after breakfast I went out and took a look around. I was indeed out in the country. As I stood at the side of the hotel and looked about, I could see little but wild country. There was a big flock of sheep near the hotel, but off where the fine city park now is there was little but sagebrush and cactus. It did not look much then as if the city would build up that far for a long time, but in a comparatively few months it had spread far beyond that- largely on paper, it is true, but it actually spread pretty fast.
"On the way down on the boat from Los Angeles I had as a fellow-passenger W. T. Wheatley, a young man who came from the same county in Kansas where I had lived; I had met him coming to California when I reached Mojave. He is now living in Los Angeles.
XINGSTO
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THE MARSTON COMPANY STORE At Fifth and C streets. One of the modern structures of San Diego.
Well, he had been here only about two weeks before he decided to go into the lumber business. He had no money to speak of, but decided to go 'on his nerve,' and he did it in good shape, too, making a success.
"The first man I had an introduction to was Simon Levi, the well known merchant, and the next was George W. Marston, who then had a small store at Fifth and F streets.
"Well, to get back to myself: I hired a horse and buggy the next day after my arrival in San Diego and started out to ride around the county. I went all over it for a couple of months in search of my old health, and it came back in great shape. When I came out here the doctor thought that I would not live long, yet I have kept going all these years. Why, in a short time I had
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added twenty pounds to my weight and felt like a boy. I never had slept so well in my life. The roads were rough and very dusty, but I did not care much for that, because there was such a lot that was pleasant. I shall never forget my first Christmas day in San Diego County. I was riding all by myself in the buggy that I had rented and was up on the road between San Diego and Fallbrook. The birds were singing merrily: everything was nice and green and fresh as the result of recent rains, and it just seemed like Heaven to me. At Fallbrook I stopped at a boarding house which was kept there by a Mr. Ritchie-I believe that was his name-and there I met Theodore S. Van Dyke, the well known writer. I had a long talk with him, and it was very interesting, as he was a remarkable man. For our Christmas dinner that day we had such delicacies as ripe strawberries and ripe tomatoes, and I tell vou I shall never forget that meal. It seems to me now that it was about the funniest Christmas I ever had : it was so different from the cold weather and such things that I had been accustomed to back in my home.
"I remember that when I first got to San Diego I saw A. C. Stephens, an old friend, and told him of my conviction that some day this would be a big city. He cast a good deal of doubt on it, and said the lack of water would hold it back. It must be remem- bered that there was no domestic supply then except what was pumped out of the riverbed, and that was not so very good, either. It had to be kept in ollas on the north side of the house, to keep it cool and purify it. Well. I said to my friend :
" .There must be good water in abundance in the mountains, and some way will be found to store that up and bring it to the city. Anyway, the climate alone is going to make this a big city: the rest will come.
"And my prediction has come true. San Diego was far from being a big city then, however. For instance, there were no side- walks worthy of the name downtown, where practically the whole town was. There were a few board sidewalks downtown on Fifth street, to be sure, but they were crude affairs, and everywhere there was sand, and the dust was thick in summer. And the sand was full of fleas.
"When I returned from my trip through the county, I stopped at the Commercial Hotel. William H. Carlson, who was a great boomer then, and who later became mayor of San Diego, was stopping there at the time. He had a real estate office on Fifth street between F and G. Mr. Metcalf and Mr. Hale also were stopping there at the time, and they were taking a great interest in the prospective growth of the city. Also. they were talking about building a street car system. The entire population seemed to have great faith in the town.
"I spent that winter in the city and in the spring went back to Kansas, much improved in health, but the California 'fever' had taken possession of me, and I stayed in the East only a few months. When I returned to San Diego I took the train at Colton and came on to this city through the Temecula canyon and Oceanside. That was in June, 1886. By that time the town was beginning to be very
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active. People who wanted to come here from the East changed cars at Colton and came straight to San Diego without going through Los Angeles.
"In a short time after that there commenced the wildest boom I ever heard of in this or in any other country. Everbody seemed to be possessed with the idea that this was to be the biggest city on the Pacific coast. Almost everybody soon went into the real estate business ; it was almost impossible to stay out of some phase of it, because people soon got to talking and thinking of little else. The town grew from about 3,000 population in 1885 to 35,000 in 1888 ; people came from everywhere, and everybody seemed to have plenty of money. And everybody seemed to be crazy to buy San Diego real estate. The bigger reputations they had for being con- servative business men, the harder they seemed to get into `the spirit of the thing. I remember well one wealthy and experienced business man from Chicago who came here and went into the real estate buying game with a vengeance. He was convinced that in a short time the whole country between here and Los Angeles on the coast would be built up solid. And he bought in accordance with that belief.
"There were barbecues every week or so, it seems to me now. Many speeches were made. Dinners were given, and there was lots of money for them too, and the excitement grew from day to day. You could not help catching the contagion of the times. Dish- washers, barbers, bakers, everybody,-all were buying and selling real estate. It was easy to sell; people would buy a hole in the ground just as quickly as they would buy a nice level lot. It did not seem to make much difference how far away the lots were: many a section of lots out as far as San Miguel Mountain were sold, and bought and sold again. And it seemed to be the safest thing on earth to buy San Diego property ; you could buy it, walk around the corner and sell it again at an advance.
"I knew few people here, and one day I went to South San Diego, as it was called then, or Imperial Beach, as it is now known. There I met Captain John H. Folks, who later became sheriff of San Diego County. He was from Kansas, too, having been an editor in Summer County. He had built a fine house, and on the subject of San Diego real estate and San Diego's future he was about as wild a man as I ever saw. He asked me what I had bought, and I told him I had not made any purchase. He replied: 'Well, get in and buy. Buy something. It doesn't make much difference what it is, but buy.' I asked him what there was for sale of which he had knowledge, and he pointed over to some property which a friend of his named Volney had down there at South San Diego; that was for sale, he said, and he thought it was a good buy. There were forty acres of it. I said, 'Let me take a look at it,' and went over and looked. It was nice, level land, and that was about all I could tell him when I got back. But by that time Volney had come up and had set a price-$5,000. 'You'd better take it,' said Captain Folks to me. Volney. at last said he would take half cash and let me pay the rest in sixty days. I made up my mind to buy. We came to San Diego and went to one of the banks. I had a
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letter to the bank president from Governor Morrill of Kansas, and I had been assured that my name was good for any sum up to $10,000. Well, to make a long story short, the papers were put in escrow, and I had the South San Diego property. Then I went home to think about it. It had taken all my ready money, and here I was obligated to pay $2,500 more in sixty days. I didn't like the looks of it, quite, and worried a little bit. I got to thinking that I had made a fool of myself. So I opened up a real estate office. thinking to make some money in that way. I had lots of business almost from the start. My place was on F street between Sixth and Seventh, opposite where the Maryland Hotel now is. One day not long after that a man and a woman came in and wanted to know what I had to sell, and I told them about this property. They asked me what I wanted for it. I said the price was $12,000. Honestly, I expected them to offer me about $6,000; to tell the truth, I should have been glad at that time to get my money out of the deal. They went down with me and looked at it, and when they came back to my office we had a little talk. We had bargained that if they bought, I should pay for the horse and team which we had used for the trip down there, and if they did not buy they were to pay for the costs of the trip. I didn't say a word to the couple when we got back to the office. At last the woman came to me and asked me about our bargain. She said, 'As I undersand it, we are to pay for the horse and wagon if we do not buy.' 'That's right,' I said. 'Well." she said, 'we will buy the land.' The bargain was closed and I had my money exactly thirty days after I had bought the land. Then I began to feel a little guilty. I said to myself, 'You probably have taken more for this land than it is worth, and you ought to look into it.' But while I was still thinking about the matter and how to clear it up, in came the man and his wife and told me they had just sold the land for $16,000. or $4,000 more than they had paid. "That's an example of how things went. Nothing like it was ever known. People were crazy wild to buy. Tom Fitch, 'the silver- tongued orator,' was making speeches every day, telling about the charms and beauties of San Diego and its climate and other ad- vantages. Lots way out on the hills were sold with ease. They put up fine pictures of the 'new addition' in some window. and the people flocked to buy. A line was formed in front of one of these offices one day, and it kept on forming up to midnight, I guess. At any rate. I had a friend from Illinois who had just got into town. He saw the line and didn't even stop to check his baggage or wash up. He got into line to buy. The sign said that the price would go up the next day, and that was enough for him. He bought seven lots out there, and came into my office the next day to tell me about it. I told him that he had lost what he had paid, and, sure enough, he did. In a few days he couldn't give them away. But that was the exception. City property sold as fast as it could be put up for sale. There were additions clear out to El Cajon and clear up to Del Mar.
"You may wonder how people lived. Of course there was a lot of building but thousands lived in tents which they rented by the night for a dollar a tent. Many others lived in barns and sheds
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and wherever they could find a place to sleep. I was offered $75 a month for my little barn, and it was not a very good one, either. Rents went 'way up. It was hard to rent a house or room anywhere. "Down in my real estate office I got tired taking money in. It came in so easy that one didn't have to work for it at all.
"Then all of a sudden it ended. I remember that one day we had a big rain, and after it was over I went downtown. The streets that had been jammed with people as is the case in the streets of Chicago or some other big city, seemed to lack something. The bottom had dropped out of the big boom. From whence the boom canie I do not know, and I have never been able to learn to my com- plete satisfaction. It stopped more suddenly by far than it came. It reversed motion and went down like a chunk of sawed-off wood. I have heard it said many a time that misfortunes never come singly. And this was true of San Diego. When the boom ended and it was hard to give property away which was really worth something, al- though nothing like the prices which had been recorded, a storm came and swept out the railroad in Temecula canyon. This was not rebuilt : instead, a railroad was built by the Santa Fe, hugging the shore most of the way down from Los Angeles. From that time people who intended to come to San Diego had to go through Los Angeles, and many of them were satisfied to remain in Los Angeles. Then the Santa Fe moved its machine shops up to San Bernardino, the street car lines which had been laid were ripped up, nobody wanted to buy real estate, people began to leave town, and in less than two years the population had been reduced from 35,000 to about 17,000. The boom had hit San Diego hard."
CHAPTER XIII
IN THE WAKE OF THE BOOM
The collapse of the boom hit San Diego as hard as it did any other section of Southern California; the flattening-out process left many residents in dire straints : many who had been potentially rich found themselves poor almost overnight; some left town for other places, in many cases selling out for enough to pay railroad fare to other parts of the country, or, being unable to sell, borrowed or scraped up the money in some way. Yet, hard as the blow was, it was not a staggering one, and San Diego, hard hit, rose from the ground and kept on fighting for her destiny.
In this struggle there were many who did valiant work, but much of the encouragement and much of the financial power which were necessary to keep San Diego on her feet came from John D. Spreckels and his associates. He had established a coal business here, and had sold much coal to the Santa Fe, which, when it went into the hands of a receiver, owed him hundreds of thousands of dollars for the fuel which he had furnished the line. By 1888 Spreckels had become vitally interested in the progress of San Diego, for which he has always held a deep affection, and when the crash came, he and his brother. Adolph, to use the words of William Clayton, managing director of the Spreckels companies in San Diego, "stood up to their necks in the ebb tide, set their teeth together and deter- mined to fight it out." They fought well, too. Spreckels advanced the money for carrying on the plans of the Coronado Beach Company in which he had become interested and which included operation of the great Hotel del Coronado, which had been opened on February 1. 1888, just as the boom was about to break. Soon after that he became interested in the street car company, and electricity was made its motive power in 1891. There was at the time a cable line in San Diego, but it later went into the hands of a receiver, and Spreckels bought it in 1897. In later years, as will be related in more detail, he took over the Southern California Mountain Water Company, by which for the first time the city of San Diego received an ade- quate and dependable supply of good mountain water for its do- mestic needs ; he extended the street car system all over the city and linked it up in various ways with suburban sections: he built several of the largest office and hotel buildings in the city, he did much to start the Exposition and keep it going, and, finally. by his preserverance in the face of tremendous discouragements, he was instrumental in the completion of the San Diego and Arizona Rail- way, by which San Diego in 1919 realized at last the dream she had cherished for years of a direct rail outlet to the East. This is only
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a mere sketch of what John D. Spreckels has done for San Diego; in a hundred other ways he has assisted in keeping the city of his adoption a going concern, and in a large measure the prosperity of the San Diego of today is due to him. Some in past years have sneered at San Diego as a "one-man town," but if there ever was a town lucky for having a man as its largest one force, San Diego is that town ; in recent years, it may be added, the few who have sneered have been adequately silenced in the chorus of admiration which has been raised in praise of this one man, the foremost citizen of San Diego, who has labored so long and unselfishly for the progress of the city.
The story of the manner in which John D. Spreckels made his first visit to San Diego and the way in which he was greeted is of more than passing interest; it affords, too, a sidelight on the char- acter of the man and of the kind of town there was at San Diego then. Mr. Spreckels first arrived in San Diego harbor one day in 1887. He was on his yacht, the Lurline, and had been making a somewhat leisurely trip down the coast from San Francisco, then his home. The yacht put in at several ports and at last drifted into the Harbor of the Sun. As the Lurline came inside, a small boat put out from shore, bearing a middle-aged gentleman who was on his way to offer free pilotage into the harbor. San Diego evidently had heard of Mr. Spreckels' trip down the coast and wanted to over- look no chance to show him true San Diego hospitality.
As it happened, the yacht's owner, wearing old clothes and a regulation sou'wester, was at the wheel of the yacht, where he had a perfect right to be, being expert in seamanship. He did not look like a yacht owner, however, in his sea-going garb; and the San Diego welcome party of one did not pay any attention to him as he stepped aboard and began to question the man on deck. Thus the distinguished visitor was able to overhear a very interesting con- versation in which the San Diegan asked a number of pertinent questions about John D. Spreckels, just who he was and what kind of man he was. The formal introduction soon followed, however and both Mr. Spreckels and his new friend had a hearty laugh over the little joke.
Soon after Mr. Spreckels' arrival at San Diego, a wharf fran- chise was offered to him. The committee which made the offer frankly explained that San Diego believed it would be a good thing to interest him in the city. He accepted the offer, for his interest in San Diego had become keen almost at a glance, and by virtue of that franchise built a wharf on which were installed modern coal bunkers. He soon began shipping coal direct into San Diego to supply the Santa Fe, whose Pacific terminal, of course, was then at San Diego, and that was his first investment in the city. Mr. Spreckels has said since that he became attracted to San Diego at first sight and that the evident possibilities of the city in a commer- cial way and as a place of residence were impressed upon him with force by that view.
The boom period and the next two or three years saw many noteworthy improvements in San Diego. Reference already has been made to the completion of the Hotel del Coronado, whose fame has
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spread far and wide. The Spreckels coal bunkers, out of which the Santa Fe engines got fuel by which service in this section was kept going, were also finished. The courthouse was rebuilt : the flume system was completed ; the San Diego, Cuyamaca and Eastern, which later was extended to Foster, on the way through the hills to the East, was finished as far as El Cajon, opening up that great valley to the port.
There was a setback of some consequence in 1891 when the California National Bank, which had been started at the height of the boom, in 1888, went under with a crash. In 1892 several of the other San Diego banks were hard hit, but the city had gone too far to be stopped, and its citizens had the confidence which brings success out of failure, and San Diego kept on growing-slowly it is true, but just as surely. A notable building was added in that year to the ever-growing list; this was the Fisher Opera House, later Isis Theatre, built by John C. Fisher. In September of the same year San Diego had a big celebration to mark the 350th anniversary of Cabrillo's discovery of the port. San Diegans who were here then will not soon forget the three days devoted to the program, in which a number of native Indians, dressed in historically correct manner, joined with San Diegans garbed as Spaniards in presenting a notable pageant, staged to tell the story of Cabrillo's landing.
To this period there belongs also the relation of an incident which gave San Diego an international importance for quite a while. This was "the Itata incident,", taking its name from the steamer Itata, by which sympathizers of a revolution in Chile hoped to obtain arms and ammunition for their cause. The schooner Robert and Minnie got the arms and munitions at San Francisco and started south to meet the Itata, which was guarded by the revolutionists' man-of-war Esmeralda. The Itata had to put into San Diego for fuel, and mean- while the U. S. authorities learned of the plan, which was to trans- ship the arms and ammuntion from the Robert and Minnie to the Itata off San Clemente Island. U. S. Marshal Gard of Los Angeles formally seized the Itata and put a man aboard her as a guard. On May 13 the Itata's skipper, having waited until he became impatient, got up steam and left the harbor. Outside the Itata met the Robert and Minnie and took aboard the arms and ammunition from that craft. The American cruiser Charleston later seized the Itata at Iquique and brought her back to San Diego, the seizure resulting in court action in which the U. S. Government was found to have done wrong. The Chilean revolutionists meanwhile were winning against the old Govern- ment of their country, and when the revolution was all over, American popularity in Chile had suffered materially. That feeling against Americans became strikingly apparent at Valparaiso on Oct. 16. 1891. when more than 100 officers and men of the U. S. S. Baltimore went to the city on shore leave. A quarrel started between some Chilean sailors and the Americans, and there soon began a formidable riot in which two of the Baltimore's men were killed. News of the fight was flashed all over the world. and after some controversy the United States. in the following year, demanded and got indemnity from Chile. So it is no wonder that mention of the Itata incident is enough to set the tongues of the old waterfront residents of San Diego to wagging reminiscently.
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