USA > California > San Diego County > San Diego > City of San Diego and San Diego County : the birthplace of California, Volume I > Part 26
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At that time, or about that time, Samuel C. Evans, a well known republican of Riverside, belonging to the Eleventh Congressional Dis- trict of California, and known as an active supporter of the progressive wing of his party, announced that he was a candidate for the republican nomination. Against him for that nomination was pitted Lewis R. Kirby, well known attorney of San Diego, former district attorney of San Diego County ; Kirby was identified with the so-called "regular" wing of the republican party, or, at least, was regarded by many as belonging to that wing, although he made the campaign as independent of any wing. At any rate, it became evident to Mr. Kettner and his friends that Evans was showing the most strength and was likely to get the nomination. At that point the suggestion that Mr. Kettner should run on the democratic ticket was made, not as a jest but in all seriousness. San Diego County for some years had been strongly republican, and so was the Eleventh Congressional District. Yet there was soon rallied behind Mr. Kettner a force, composed of republicans as well as democrats, which made him very evidently a formidable candidate. The election was the one in which Woodrow Wilson was
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first made President, and the wave which sent him to the White House helped mightily to make Kettner a Congressman. Evans at the pri- mary won the republican nomination over Kirby, and in November, at the final election, Kettner defeated Evans by more than 4,000 votes-a remarkable victory for the San Diegan, in view of the heavy republican majorities recorded in previous years by the district.
Kettner went to Washington soon after his election, determined to begin his work as soon as possible, although he was only Congress- man-elect. The result of that work showed from the very start. San Diego began to receive recognition, long withheld or scantily granted, that measured up to her deserts. In the eight years that Congressman Kettner represented the Eleventh California District in Congress he maintained the pace which he had set at the beginning, and the re- sults which he obtained have been written indelibly into San Diego's history of the period.
In San Diego in 1921 there is hardly a government enterprise for which Congressman Kettner has not worked with success. His methods were not those of the orator, but of the business man, as he was- gathering facts, with the assistance of the Chamber of Commerce, which always co-operated with him loyally and closely, and presenting those facts to officials and representatives at Washington in such a compelling way that San Diego's advantages, particularly as a navy base, became evident and received the recognition which they richly deserved.
In the campaign to elect Kettner a prominent part was taken by F. C. Spalding, then president of the Chamber of Commerce, by the secretary, Rufus Choate, and by other members, who went through the district making speeches and soliciting votes for the San Diegan. This led to some argument regarding the propriety of the chamber's going into politics, and to some resignations from the chamber's di- rectorate. But whatever feeling must have existed then soon disap- peared in view of the excellent record made by Mr. Kettner.
One of the first appropriations obtained for San Diego through the new Congressman's efforts was one setting aside $1,000.000 for new fortifications on Point Loma. This he had to accomplish against the arguments of army engineers, one of whom testified before the appropriations committee which was considering the matter on Feb- ruary 15, 1915, that Los Angeles had "a much better harbor" than did San Diego. This remark at least showed a lack of accurate infor- mation.
In his very first term as Congressman Mr. Kettner was put on the rivers and harbors committee-a real honor for a new member of the house-and this helped him to gain friends and influence. He re- signed from the committee in 1915 to go on the naval affairs committee, then as now a body of prime importance as far as San Diego's de- mands are concerned.
Kettner was re-elected to Congress in 1914 over James C. Need- ham, his republican adversary, by more than 22,000 votes, the vote being: Kettner, 47,165; Needham, 25,001.
At the 1916 election he was again sent back to Washington. His republican opponent that year was Robert C. Harbison of San Ber- nardino. The vote was: Kettner 42,051; Harbison, 33,765.
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At the 1918 election Congressman Kettner had no republican op- ponent, the only candidate against him at the final election being that of the prohibition party. Kettner was sent back by a large plurality.
Before the 1920 campaign began in earnest, Congressman Kettner announced he would not be a candidate for re-election, declaring that his business needed his personal attention, and he held to this deier- mination despite the many appeals made to him that he run again. When he returned home at the end of his fourth term in Congress. he and Mrs. Kettner, who had been his close advisor and valued assistant, were signally honored by the people of San Diego, an as- sembly of thousands gathering to do honor to these two loyal San Diegans.
The spring of 1912 will be remembered for some time by San Diegans because of the trouble which the city authorities had at that time with the Industrial Workers of the World. That organization sent emissaries here apparently with the idea of defying the police by holding street meetings, in which radical and inflammatory "free speech" remarks were frequent. Arrests were made, and soon the city jail was crowded. Still the I. W. W. kept up their hostile and law-defying demonstrations and, after a few scenes of violence, an unofficial committee of citizens, working with the police and county officers, took the I. W. W. out of town in trucks and on foot and sent them across the northern line of the county. That method of treat- ment soon freed the city of disturbance. This trouble was followed by the arrival in San Diego of Emma Goldman and Ben Reitman, avowed anarchists. She was induced to leave town on the first avail- able train. Reitman was taken from the U. S. Grant Hotel by a party of earnest citizens and escorted north with considerable haste and emphasis. That ended a chapter which was full enough of ex- citement at the time.
The San Diego Realty Board was organized in 1912 with twenty- nine members and, due to the rapid growth of San Diego at the time, increased its membership to more than 100 within a year. The first officers included : Charles F. O'Neall, president ; P. H. Goodwin, first vice-president ; Gordon Decker, second vice-president ; John B. Starkey, third vice-president; F. C. Spalding, secretary ; Charles W. Fox, treasurer. Other directors were George D. Easton and John Burnham.
Severe damage was done to crops and trees, especially in lemon orchards by what San Diegans now call "the great freeze," which came in two nights of weather unprecedentedly cold for Southern California. These nights were of January 6 and 7, 1913, the tempera- ture going as low as 25 degrees above zero in the city and somewhat lower in some other sections. In September of the same year all records for heat in San Diego were broken when the temperature mounted to 110 degrees. The "hot day" was September 17.
A notable addition to San Diego's permanent buildings was that of the Federal Building, completed early in 1913. Built on the north- ern side of the block bounded by State, Union, F and J streets, it is an imposing structure of three stories, with basement and attic. The site was originally owned by the War Department, which acquired it in the early days of San Diego and exchanged it with the Treasury Department for other city property. The style of architecture is that
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popularly known as Mission, the roof and towers resembling those of the old Franciscan structures. On the first floor the lobby on account of its beauty of architectural design compels admiration. The floor is of terrazo with marble borders. A corridor runs the whole length of the building's front, about 171 feet, and parallel to the main front. Along its sides are ranged handsome marble pilasters, and there is an ornamental coffered ceiling, the panels of which, in high relief, are of plaster.
Since its completion the Federal Building has been used by these departments and officers :
The postoffice, customs office, immigration, weather bureau, ani- mal industry. United States courts, forestry, internal revenue, United States marshal, local board of civil service examiners, postoffice in- spector, special agents of the internal revenue service and the public health and marine hospital service.
The new Santa Fe station, which was begun in June, 1914, was completed and thrown open for use in January, 1915. It is one of the most beautiful and best equipped stations on the line of the Santa Fe, and its opening was happily timed to coincide with that of San Diego's Exposition. The building cost about $250,000 and was erected by the William Simpson Construction Company.
Nearly all the grading and laying of track from San Diego to Campo on the line of the San Diego & Arizona Railway were com- pleted in 1915, making a stretch of completed road east from this city of about 65 miles. Meanwhile a 32-mile stretch had been completed from Seeley in Imperial Valley to Carriso Gorge in the mountains. Train service on the San Diego end of the line was started to Tijuana, Mexico, on January 1, 1916.
The year 1915 was marked by a number of improvements in the fire department, a modern machine shop being established and equipped, more alarm boxes being provided and new apparatus and more men being stationed at La Jolla, whose importance as a sub- urban section of the city was well established by that time. Two new fire department stations were opened-one at Ocean Beach and the other at Columbia and Cedar streets. Work was also started in this year on the city's first fireboat, the William Kettner, the craft of course being named for the Congressman who did so much for San Diego. This work was all done under the direction of Louis Almgren, Jr., chief of the department.
The last months of the year saw the completion of the paved boulevard connecting San Diego and East San Diego. This important road was opened for use in November.
At the very time when San Diego's Exposition was swinging into full stride for its second year, San Diego County was visited by the most disastrous floods in its history, torrential rains sweeping over the whole Southwest, tearing out roads, railroads, wires and bridges and sending raging streams down every valley, with death and suffer- ing in their path. More than a score of residents of the county lost their lives, property damage mounting into the hundreds of thousands of dollars was done, the city was almost isolated from the rest of the world for a considerable period, one great dam was ripped out and another seriously damaged, while little homes and ranches in many sections were swept bare or sustained great damage.
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There were two floods; the first amounted to little in itself, but the heavy rains which made it set streams running from mountain to sea and laid the foundation for the greater damage which the second brought.
The first flood was brought on by a rain which started on Friday, January 14. Rain descended steadily on January 14 and 15, and in the night of Sunday, January 16, reached torrential proportions, drenching the whole county. By 2 A. M., Monday, January 17, the San Diego River had gone beyond its usual modest banks in Mission Valley and was rising rapidly. Meanwhile all other valleys were carrying great volumes of water to the ocean. Reservoirs were filled almost in a day. By Monday afternoon reports began to reach the city of serious damage, of bridges washed out, of the sudden stop in train service over the Santa Fe and other lines, of wires that were down, of impassable roads, of the drowning of cattle, of the dire peril which befell many a rancher and members of his family. That night the San Diego River at Old Town was running practically from bank to bank.
On January 17 the bridge of the San Diego & Southeastern Rail- road across the San Diego River at Lakeside was washed out and several hundred yards of track on the same road between Lakeside and Foster were ripped away-not to be replaced. The city mean- while was receiving a soaking which did little harm but gave its resi- dents a good idea of what was happening in less favored sections.
At about this time the newspapers of San Diego began to recall that Charles M. Hatfield, heralded as a "rainmaker," had appeared at the city hall some time before, voicing his confidence that he could make rainfall by mechanical devices of his contrivance, that he had had some conversation with the city councilmen, eager to see the city reservoirs filled, and that he had gone to the Morena dam, an in- tegral part of the city's water system evidently under the impression that the city council had verbally promised him $10,000 if he would fill Morena reservoir in 12 months of 1916. Hatfield seems to have set up some apparatus on the Morena watershed and to have re- mained with it for some time ; while this first storm was on he is re- ported to have telephoned to the city that he had merely started. He obtained, however, no money from the city, although the case later went to court. The Government weather bureau head at the time of the storm expressed doubt that Hatfield's contrivance had exerted any influence on the heavens.
On January 18 the San Diego River, which had come down as a torrent, began to recede, and the worst of the first flood of the year was over. It was not until about that time that the plight of the Little Landers colony, founded by William E. Smythe at San Ysidro several years before, was fully realized. Many of this little colony in the Tijuana Valley near the Mexican boundary line had lost their crops through the rush of the waters; some had lost their homes, built on the lowlands, and there was much suffering. As the result of an urgent plea made by Mr. Smythe, who was soon assisted by others, a fund was started for the relief of the people at San Ysidro, and food, clothing, bedding and tents were rushed to the stricken settlement. The relief fund soon amounted to more than $2.000.
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This first flood also compelled the racetrack which had just been opened at Tijuana, on the Mexican side, by James W. Coffroth and others, to close its gates for many days.
Hardly had San Diego got over this storm before the second and really big one broke. With the soil of the whole county already well soaked with the rains of the first storm, the second began with a rush. This rain started January 24 and reached its culmination on Thursday, January 27. Anxiety was felt on that day for the safety of the Lower Otay dam, part of the city water system, and for the great Sweetwater dam, whose waters supply National City and adjacent territory. The rain fell in drenching torrents, filling city streets, inundating valley sections of the county, washing out pipe lines of the city water system from Lower Otay to Chollas Heights and making the rivers of the county raging streams.
On the afternoon of January 27 the city's concrete bridge over the San Diego River at Old Town was carried out. This structure had been built three years before at a cost of $22,840. At about the the same time the roaring river waters, carrying an immense amount of debris from valley lands, ripped out the bridge of the Santa Fe Railroad across the San Diego River, a short distance from the city bridge. The railroad bridge had been weighted down with heavily loaded freight cars to save it, but this precaution did not avail against the flood.
Telegraph, telephone, light and power wires all over the county were torn out by the flood, which was accompanied by a heavy gale on January 27. The high wind compelled all craft to remain inside the harbor, whose security was again proved on this occasion.
Water began flowing over the top of the Lower Otay dam at about 5 P. M., January 27. At about 9 P. M. the great dam went out with a crash, a high wall of water sweeping with a deafening roar down the Otay Valley to the ocean, carrying all before it and raking the soil off until the valley floor was little more than a gravel bed. In this great rush of water several lives were lost, homes were destroyed and carried to the bay, ranches utterly wiped out and desolation left behind.
At about the same time the earth dam at the south side of the Sweetwater reservoir was carried out, and the earth and rock fill at the north end of the dam was torn off. This added to the raging flood which was already sweeping down the Sweetwater Valley, causing much damage, although nothing like that of the Otay Valley.
The Lower Otay dam had been built in 1897 by the Southern California Mountain Water Company, of which E. S. Babcock was then head. The dam was of rock fill, with a heavy steel core, a foot of concrete having been placed on each side. So great was the force of the water which swept out of the great reservoir and tore down the valley that the heavy steel core and great chunks of masonry were carried far in the flood.
Tremendous damage, mounting into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, was done to the railroad lines of the county. The losses sustained by the Santa Fe, the San Diego & Arizona and the San Diego & Southeastern (later made a part of the San Diego & Ari- zona) will not be forgotten for many a year.
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The actual loss of life in the 1916 floods was about twenty. The total of the property damage it is hard to figure, but it certainly was high. There were many instances of heroism and self-sacrifice in those trying days. The losses sustained by many reduced them to pitiful circumstances, and to relieve this situation a fund of con- siderable proportions was raised in the city.
San Diego, as the result of the floods, got no mail by train for a month. For several days there was no communication with the outside world except by wireless telegraph and by boat. Mail soon began to move by steamer. The first Santa Fe train in from the north arrived on February 18.
No section of the county or of Southern California escaped the torrential rains of January, 1916, and in many places in the South outside San Diego County there were heavy losses.
The great floods of January, 1916, beside destroying the Lower Otay dam, carried away the water system's transmission mains across the Sweetwater River, destroyed a great part of the Morena-Dulzura conduit and resulted in the complete loss of twelve wells in Mission Valley. This left the city with an available storage supply of only 90,000,000 gallons in the Chollas reservoir, the average daily con- sumption at the time being 5,500,000 gallons. To meet the emergency, two pumps were quickly installed in Mission Valley, from which 4,500,000 gallons a day could be pumped, and additional water was bought from the Cuyumaca system. Repairs on the storage system were carried on with haste, and the city was soon in good shape as far as water supply was concerned.
The year 1916 was marked by continued activity in building, notable items under this head being the construction of the University Club's $30,000 home on Seventh Street, additions costing about $40,000 to the biological station at La Jolla, building of the Swift & Company kelp reduction plant at the foot of F Street, completion of the Southern Reduction Company plant at the foot of Beardsley Street, and the building of many residences and public garages.
By the end of 1916 the people of San Diego had come to some realization of the work being done by the great potash plant built by the Hercules Powder Company on the bay front near the National City-Chula Vista line. This plant cost, it has been reported. about $1,500,000 and was worked night and day, its products going largely into powerful explosives which the government needed to win the World war. Great kelp cutters for many months mowed the kelp beds near San Diego to keep this and the Swift plant going.
The San Diego & Arizona Railway was built as far as Campo in 1916.
The first news San Diego got of the partnership of John D. Spreckels and the Southern Pacific to complete the San Diego & Arizona came on November 21, 1916, when there was a "get-together" meeting at Campo of San Diego City, County and Imperial men. Mr. Spreckels introduced Julius Kruttschnitt, chairman of the Executive Committee of the Southern Pacific, as "my partner." William Sproule. president of the Southern Pacific, was one of the speakers at the meeting and said that San Diego would have a railroad of which it could well be proud. The news did much to cheer both San Diego and Imperial Valley.
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Only a mere mention has been made of the services of Harry L. Titus for the San Diego & Arizona Railway. What he did for the Spreckels companies and interests in and near San Diego, however, deserves much more than mention. A resident of San Diego for many years and well acquainted with its growth, a well trained attorney, but, most of all, the possessor of a large amount of common sense and knowledge of men and affairs, he worked for many years as one of John D. Spreckels' closest advisors and implicitly trusted asso- ciates. At one time and for a considerable period manager of the San Diego & Arizona, and always keenly interested in its progress toward completion, he gave much counsel of great value. Long associated with Mr. Spreckels and always enjoying the confidence, richly deserved, of his employer, he gave unselfishly of time and effort and from his large store of experience contributed generously toward the success not only of the railroad but of many other enterprises from which San Diego has benefited to an extent hardly yet realized. Here was a man who lived a quiet, even, almost retiring life, yet he performed his work in a highly successful way. When he died on July 11, 1917, the citizens of San Diego joined in paying tribute to his worth and his kindly, human personality.
Much of San Diego's life in 1917 and 1918 was concerned with the World war, and those matters are taken up in another chapter of this book. In the selective draft, the choice of a site on the Linda Vista mesa for what became the great Camp Kearny, in the parades of men chosen to go to war, in Red Cross and Liberty Bond "drives" and campaigns, the people of San Diego almost literally forgot the smaller things of the usual daily life and entered upon the nation's work in the spring of 1917 with a spirit whose force was felt until the end of the great struggle across the Atlantic. With other cities of the nation San Diego paid heavy toll in the influenza epidemics, the malignancy of that disease coming close to San Diegans in the fall of 1918, when quarantine regulations were enforced here in an effort to curb the spread of the trouble. One quarantine was in force from October 14 to November 9, during which period the churches, schools and theatres of the city were kept closed. Masks of gauze were prescribed December 6 of that year, and stores were kept closed from December 6 to December 9 in an effort to prevent crowds from gathering in any place, the doctors having concluded that in this way some good would be accomplished. From December 10 to December 24 more liberal quarantine regulations were in force.
The schools, closed because of the influenza epidemic, were opened again January 6, 1919.
An event of importance in the relations of San Diego with the Federal Government and in the development of San Diego as a naval base was the acceptance by the Government of 135 acres as a site for a naval training station. The tract was known as the Loma Portal tract and adjoins the marine base at Dutch Flats. Of this tract 120 acres was owned by the San Diego Securities Company and was taken at an agreed net price of $200,000. The other fifteen acres were acquired by the city in other ways and turned over to the navy. The chamber of commerce, acting for the people, appointed a "naval training station executive committee," which raised $280,000 by public
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subscription to acquire the site, and the Navy Department, author- ized by Congress, accepted it.
Other naval projects started at San Diego in this period were the naval supply depot at the foot of Broadway and the navy hos- pital in Balboa Park. Sites for these were given by the city to the Government. The large warehouse project is completed and the great hospital is nearing completion as this is written.
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