USA > California > San Diego County > San Diego > History of San Diego, 1542-1908 : an account of the rise and progress of the pioneer settlement on the Pacific coast of the United States, Volume II > Part 2
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After this excursion we went back to San Francisco and in a few days General Rosecrans came to me and said there were two men who wanted to buy me out. I went with him and met these men. General Rosecrans described the property and we talked it over for half or three-quarters of an hour, and they said they would give me $100,000 for the property. I thought, since they took me up so quick that they would probably give more. General Rosecrans told them that in his opinion the prop- erty was well worth a million dollars, and at last they said they would give me $200,000, and finally $250,000. I thought they might not be able to carry out their agreement, and also that if it was worth that much I might as well build a city there myself and get the profits. General Rosecrans asked me afterwards why I did not accept the offer. IIe said that I could have lived all my days like a fighting-cock on that much money. He said that they had the money and were abundantly able to fulfill any agreement they might make.
There was an old building standing in new San Diego, about State and F Streets, on the water front when we landed. It had been braced up to keep it from falling down. It belonged to a man named Wm. H. Davis known as "Kanaka" Davis, who had been connected with new San Diego, but was then living in San Francisco. I bought this building from him with the lot it stood on and I think I paid him $100 for them. A man named Dunnells came to me to ask about the chance for starting a hotel at San Diego. He had been up north somewhere and was look- ing for a location, and I wanted to get a hotel started. So I told
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HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO
him about the place and about this old building, and he wanted to know what I would take for it. I sold it to him, with the lot, for $1,000. He was afraid he would not like the place, so I told him I would take it off his hands if he did not; and when he got there he liked the place and the property. It was a small frame building. Captain Dunnells was a good citizen. He died within a year past. His son is chief pilot of San Diego harbor.
Well, I got everything closed up in San Francisco and came down here and began work. I surveyed the land; I also began
CAPT. S. S. DUNNELLS Proprietor of the first hotel in Horton's Addition
the building of a wharf at the foot of Fifth Street, in August, 1868. A man from San Francisco had agreed to put in half the materials and do half the work on this wharf, if I would give him five blocks of land for it. I agreed and he began work under this arrangement; but he soon backed out and I took it off his hands and finished the work myself. This was the first construction work I did in San Diego. The wharf cost alto- gether $45,000. This Judge Hollister, the same man who bid against me for the last parcel of land I bought from the city
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WHEN LOTS WERE CHEAP
trustees, was the assessor, and he assessed this wharf at $60,000 and tried to make me pay taxes on that valuation. But I took the matter up with higher authorities, showed them just what the wharf had cost, and got the assessment canceled.
After the survey was made, I set to work to get the town built up. There were a number of men who had come here and wanted work, and I offered them lots at $10 apiece. There was a man stopping with Dunnells who had brought about $8,000 in silver with him and said he was going to buy property. He said to
DUNNELLS' HOTEL, CORNER STATE AND F STREETS
these men : "Don't pay it, you fools; you will be giving Hor- ton something for nothing. Those lots only cost him about 26 cents an acre." They had already agreed to buy, but this man's talk made them want to go back on their bargain. I went to them and said: "I understand that you would like to get your money back. There is your money." I had not yet made out the deeds. I told them that they could each have a lot free, on condition that they would each put up a house on his lot to be at least twelve feet wide, sixteen feet long and twelve feet high, covered with shingles or shakes. That I would give them an inside lot on these conditions, but not a corner, and the deeds to be delivered when the buildings were finished. They said they
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HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO
would do that, and they went ahead and put up twenty build- ings, down on Fifth Street, near the water front. That was the beginning of the building of new San Diego. I said to those men : "Now you keep those and take care of them and pay the taxes, and they will make you well off." But every one of them sold out in a little while for a good price, except one man, Joseph Nash. He still owns the lot he got from me.
The next day after I had made this arrangement, some of the men who had been scared out of buying from me came and said : "Well, Horton, I guess we will take those lots now at $10." I said: "No, they will cost you $20 now." A few days later I raised them to $25, then to $30, and sold them at these prices. The man who had caused trouble with my first purchasers came to me and wanted to buy lots at the increased prices, but I refused to sell him anything, because it was through him that these men had backed out of their trade. "Not one dollar of your money, sir," I said, "will buy anything from me. If you buy it will be at second hand from someone else." He went back to San Francisco and told people there was no use for any- body to come down here to buy property from Horton, unless he was a Republican.
When I went to San Francisco, I had just come from the war and was a black Republican. I talked my religion (Republican- ism) freely in Old Town. A man came to me and said: “Be careful how you talk politics, Horton. What you have already said here is as much as your life is worth. This is the worst Copperhead hole in California."
I said: "I will make it à Republican hole before I have been here very long."
"Well," he said, "I would like to see the tools you will do it with."
At that time I would not employ a man unless he was a Repub- lican. Two years after I started San Diego, I carried the city for the Republican ticket, county and state, and the city and county have remained Republican ever since.
Nohody here had any money to hire men but me. I employed in building, surveying, working on the wharf, and so on, about a hundred men. I had my office on Sixth Street. Property was rising in value and I was taking in money fast. After a steamer came in, I would take in, for lots and blocks, in a single day, $5,000, $10,000, $15,000, and even $20,000. I have taken in money so fast I was tired of handling it.
There was a man named John Allyn, who built the Allyn Block on Fifth Street. He came down here to see San Diego and I hired him to paper this old building that I had sold to Dun- nells. He was four days doing the work, and I gave him for it
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A WELL-PAID WORKMAN
the lot on the southeast corner of Fifth and D Streets, 50x100. He took it, but said he didn't know whether he would ever get enough for it to make it worth while to record the deed. It was only a year or two later that he sold it for $2,000 to the people who now own it, and it is now worth over $100,000. Allyn is now dead. He gave $3,000 to the city park, and that was the first donation that was made for that purpose.
GROCERIES
CORNER OF FIFTH AND D STREETS IN 1872 Showing Horton House, and Union Building in course of construction
Just north of the Russ Lumber Company's place there were about a dozen houses which had been built by people who had bought lots. I said to these people that if they would white- wash their houses I would furnish the brushes and lime. They said they could not spare the time. But I wanted it done because I thought it would look well when the steamers came in. I then said that if they would let me whitewash one-half of their houses, on the seaward sides, I would furnish the materials and do the work. They consented, and so I hired men and had the houses whitewashed on the south and west sides. Then they wanted me
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HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO
to whitewash them all over, and I would not do it, but still offered to furnish the brushes and lime, so they finally finished the job themselves. The houses then made a fine show and peo- ple coming in on the steamers thought the town was growing very fast.
I commenced building the Horton House in January, 1870, and finished it in just nine months to a day from the time I turned the first shovelful of dirt. It cost me $150.000, finished, furnished and painted. There were 96 sleeping rooms in the Horton House, besides a dining room, reading room, bar, and office. The main wing was three stories high and the balance two. It was built of brick made here and they cost $11 a thou- sand. I bought two steamer loads of lumber and used it in the building.
I began the bank building just about the time I moved into the Horton House. This is the building on the southwest corner of Third and D Streets, where the Union has its offices. It was built of the same kind of brick that the Horton House was. The strongest vault in California today, I think, is in that building. A hole was dug down to hard gravel and a foundation laid upon it with cement and broken bottles. There were either four or six pieces of stone about 18 inches thick, 24 inches wide and 12 feet long for the foundation, laid on top of this foundation. The building was finished in about a year. I used the build- ing myself-had my office in the corner rooms upstairs for my land business, and the downstairs part was fitted up for a bank. The building was intended for the Texas and Pacific Railroad, but they never occupied it.
I was president of the old San Diego Bank when it was first organized, but I resigned soon after and Mr. Nesmith became its president. I was doing more business than the bank was; I told them they were too slow for me. I used to keep my money in the old Pacific Bank, at San Francisco, and I would give Klauber, Marston and others certificates on that bank, and they used these certificates as checks to pay their bills with.
The property I have given away in San Diego and never received a cent for is now worth over a million dollars. Out- side of this, I have received, as I can show from my books, from the sale of property, over a million dollars in San Diego.
I put up about fifty residences in Middletown for people who had come out here during the boom and wanted to get prop- erty cheap. None of these houses cost less than $500; one cost $3,000, and the rest cost $1,500 apiece. I rented these build- ings to people who were waiting to buy, at $5 a month. As soon as things began to go down and rents were cheap, many of these people left my buildings. I was once offered $30,000
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TAMING A MONOPOLY
for 30 of these buildings, by people who wanted to buy right off and move into them.
After I had built the Horton House, I went to San Fran- cisco to get Ben Ilolliday to put down the steamer fare and freight. The freight was $15 a ton from San Francisco to San Diego, and passenger fares were $60 a round trip. Holliday was the principal owner of the steamship line. He said to me: "Mr. Horton, I am running these steamers to make money, and I am not going to put the freight or passenger rates down. I shan't put them down at all."
"Then," I said, "I shall have to do the best I can."
"Well, what will you do?"
"I will put on an opposition line, if I can find a steamer." "Well, you do it, if you ean, and be damned!"
Holliday was a rough talking man. After I had left his office I went up Montgomery Street and there I met a man named George W. Wright, who was the owner of the steamer Wm. Taber, which had just come around the Horn. He said to me: "Horton, if you will give me one-half the freight you are giving to Holliday & Co., I will put the steamer Taber on as an opposition line to San Diego."
I said if he put the freight down from $15 a ton to $9 a ton, and passenger fares from $60 to $30 a round trip from San Francisco to San Diego, he should have one-half of the freight.
He said: "I don't know whether I can rely on that or not. Show me how you are situated."
I said to him: "I am employing in San Diego a hundred men. I will tell them that if they don't support the opposition line, I will tell them that their time is out and they can go wherever they can do better."
"What would you advise me to do?" he asked.
"I would advise you to put into the newspapers-all of them -a notice that you will carry freight between San Francisco and San Diego for $9 a ton and passengers for $30 a round trip or $15 each way. I will take the stage and ride night and day till I get to San Diego, and attend to that end of it."
When the steamers came in, the Taber was loaded down to the gunwale with freight and passengers, but the Orizaba had not enough passengers to pay for the lights they were burning on the ship. It went that way, as near as I can remember, about two months. Then Holliday went to Wright and asked him to take off the opposition steamer, and how much he would take to keep it off for three years. Wright said he wanted $300,000. "Well, what will you take for keeping it off for only a year?" Wright said $100,000, but that he would have to send down for Horton and see him about it first. "What, has Horton got any-
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HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO
thing to say about it?" "Yes." "The hell he has! Well, send for Horton." So Wright sent for me and I went up to San Francisco and Wright told Holliday: "Horton has come and is at the Occidental Hotel."
"Well, ask him to come to my office."
"Horton has told me he would never set foot in your office again and you know it. You will have to go up to the hotel to see him, for Horton will not come down here."
"Horton's pretty damned independent, isn't he ?"
"Yes, and he is able to be."
"Well, Jesse [speaking to his brother, Jesse Holliday], come along and let's go up and see Horton."
Well, they came up to the hotel where I was stopping, and Wright told them about the arrangements they had with me. "Well." said Holliday, "I will agree to that."
"Well," I said, "I want you to agree further never to raise the rates for freight or passengers."
He said he would not agree to that.
"Well, gentlemen," I said, "you can sit here as long as you like; I have other business to attend to;" and I took my hat and started for the door. They called me back, and after some further talk, agreed to my demands. I said to them then: "Before this business is closed, we will have a lawyer come here. and you will sign an agreement never to raise the freight or passenger rates." He didn't want to do it, but I said: "Do it, or I'll have nothing more to do with you;" so finally he agreed to that. Holliday paid Wright his $100,000, and he went out of the business. That was a benefit to Los Angeles, too, because freight rates were reduced to that point.
The landing for Los Angeles was San Pedro. The old Taber lies today up above Rio Vista, where she has been run ever since she was taken off. The Orizaba continued to run, for years. I don't know just when she stopped running. Captain Johnson was her captain.
Just after I had moved into the Horton House, a man in the employ of the Western Union Telegraph Company came down here to see if he could get subscriptions enough to build the telegraph line from Los Angeles to San Diego. After he had been around and raised what he could, he was sitting in the stage waiting for it to start, to return to Los Angeles. He called me out there and told me he could not get help enough to warrant building the line down from Los Angeles ; he thought perhaps it could be done after a year. I said: "What will it cost to build the line from Los Angeles?" He said that he lacked about $5,000 of having enough. I said: "What will you give me if I make up the amount?" He said: "If you
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SALE OF THE PLAZA
will subscribe one-half the amount we lack, we will give you one-half the earnings of the telegraph for three years. We will send an operator down here, and you to furnish an office and pay him $50 a month." I said: "I will take it." He said: "Shake hands on it, sir!" So we shook hands, and in one month from that time they had the instruments in working order in the Horton House. Quite a number of people around town had subscribed, but there was not enough pledged to secure the line. E. W. Morse was appointed to collect the subscrip- tions, but I furnished the $5,000 that was lacking to secure the extension. Within three years I got my money back and a little more.
I never parted with the title to the Plaza until I sold it to the city, but had reserved it for my own use and for the Hor- ton House. People got to talking about wanting to buy it and to put different buildings on the ground. I told them they could have it for the city, if they would pay me $10,000 for it, and they agreed to do it. Before the sale was closed, a man from Massachusetts wanted that ground, and after he had exam- ined the title offered me $50,000 for it. I went to the men I had had most of the talk with, and asked them if they would not let me sell to this man, instead of to the city. "Well," they said, "we want it for the city, and we should think you would, too." "Yes," I said, "I did want the city to have it." "Well, you agreed to let the city have it for $10,000 and we think you ought to stand by your bargain." "Very well, then," I said, "let me have $100 a month until it is paid for," and that is the way the arrangement was made, to pay me $10,000 in monthly payments of $100 until it was paid for. That is the full history of the Plaza.
After I got moved into the IIorton House, I went to Wash- ington to see about getting the Scott Railroad. Scott and some other people in the East wanted to build a railroad from El Paso west, but they did not make any provision for building from San Diego east. I saw how this was, and so I got up one morning, took money, and went off to Washington without waiting to consult anyone about it. When I got to Washington, I went to Scott and said :
"I see your bill is up and I don't know whether it will pass or not, but it depends upon one thing: You have agreed in your bill to build one hundred miles a year, commencing at El Paso, this way ; and you have agreed to nothing from San Diego east. Now, unless you will agree, and have it put in the bill, that you shall build fifty miles a year east from San Diego and fifty miles west from El Paso, your bill is lost."
"Well," said Scott, "how do you know you can defeat it ?"
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HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO
I said: "Tomorrow or next day your bill comes up, and you are beaten. If you can get that bill fixed right, I can help you to pass it."
S. S. ("Sunset") Cox was in Congress then, and had just made a speech against this bill. When I first got there, I went to see our Congressman. He was from San José. A man from New Orleans, our Congressman, and Cox were the committee in charge of the bill, and Cox said that if Scott would consent to amend it, he (Cox) would help get the Democratic votes neces- sary to pass it, notwithstanding he had already made a speech against the bill. This was done in half an hour.
So then I told Scott about Cox and the arrangement I had made with him. I got Scott and the committee together in the library of the Capitol, and they agreed to change the bill the way I wanted it. Of course, Cox could not vote for the bill after having made a speech against it, but he got leave of absence and went home for a few days when it was about to be voted on. After securing his leave of absence he started off without having arranged with his friends to vote for the bill. I reminded him of it just in time, and he said: "Oh, my God ! I had forgotten all about that." Then he went back and talked with about twenty-five of his Democratic friends, and when the bill came up for a vote, it passed.
I went to Washington three times on this business, after I got into the Horton House, and it cost me altogether $8,000. I got Scott, one senator, and two or three congressmen and oth- ers who were helping with the road, to come out here, and they all stopped with me at the Horton House. (This was Aug- ust 30, 1872.)
Scott was satisfied with the proposition, and so he let a con- tract to grade 25 miles, from 25th Street to Rose Canyon, and 10 miles were graded and Scott paid for it. [Horton threw the first shovelful of dirt, April 21, 1873.]
Scott went to Paris and made an agreement to sell his bonds there, and they were getting everything ready in order to close the transaction. They called him "the railroad king" in the United States at that time. He had an invitation to dine with the crowned heads of Europe, in Belgium. He did not tell the Paris bankers where he was going, but went off and was gone thirty-six hours. In twelve hours after he left, they had every- thing ready to pay over the money at the bank. They went to the place where he had been stopping and inquired, and sent in every direction to find him, and even telegraphed to Eng- land, but could not hear from him. During the time before he got back, Jay Cooke and Company failed, and when he got back to Paris, they said to him :
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AN EXPENSIVE DINNER
"Mr. Scott, if you had been here a few hours ago instead of taking dinner with the crowned heads, you would have had your twelve million dollars. Now, we have lost confidence and cannot take your bonds."
Scott telegraphed me how it was. I had put up the bank building, where the Union office now is, as I said, for him, and he had agreed to give me $45,000 for it. He telegraphed me :
"I have lost the sale of my bonds and am a ruined man. I don't know whether I shall ever be able to get my head above water again. Do the best you can. I shall not be able to ful- fill the contracts I have with you."
This failure hurt me severely. People who had bought land of me heard of the failure, and they met in front of the bank building and sent for me. I went over there and they asked me to take the property back, and said I was welcome to all they had paid if I would only give up the contracts. I told them nobody should be deceived, and how Scott had failed and would not be able to live up to his contract. I paid them back dollar for dollar; every man who had made payments on account of land purchase got it back.
I had given 22 blocks of land at the northwest corner of Hor- ton's Addition, as a contribution toward getting the first rail- road to come here. I lost them, and the railroad never was built.
This refers, of course, to the Texas and Pacific. When Hunt- ington, Crocker, and some other Southern Pacific officials came here (there were five in the party), I entertained them at the Horton House and did not charge them a cent.
Huntington said : "If you will give us one-half of the prop- erty you have agreed to give Tom Scott, we will build the road from here to Fort Yuma." I told them we could not do it. They sent an engineer to go over the ground that had already been surveyed by Scott.
Up at Los Angeles, they had agreed to build a road, and had it as far as from Los Angeles to San Bernardino, and there they came to a stand. They told the Los Angeles people if they would give them $400,000 to help them get through a certain piece of land to the desert (San Gorgonio Pass), they would go on through there; otherwise they would build the road to San Diego and from there to Point Yuma. Mayor Hazzard told the people of Los Angeles that if they did that, Los Angeles would be nothing but a way-station, and the only way to save the city was to agree to give them the money they wanted. They did this, and that was the reason the Southern Pacific was not built to San Diego. The objection they had to coming here, they said, was because they could not compete with water trans-
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HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO
portation, and therefore it would not be to their interests to come to a place where they would have to compete with water. [This is the end of Mr. Horton's "own story."]
THE DEED TO HORTON'S ADDITION
When Horton came along and proposed to buy lands from the town, no meeting of the trustees, and no election, had been held for two years. Horton insisting upon it, a special election was called, and E. W. Morse, Thomas H. Bush, and J. S. Man-
JOSEPH S. MANNASSE
Conspicuous in business and political affairs in San Diego before and during the boom
nasse elected trustees. This board met and organized on April 30, 1867, the minutes of the meeting reading as follows :
Organization of the Board of Trustees for the City of San Diego, California.
April 30, 1867.
The new Board, consisting of J. S. Mannasse, E. W. Morse, and Thomas H. Bush, chosen at the election held the 27th day of April, 1867, met and Organized by Electing J. S. Mannasse
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DEED TO HORTON
President, E. W. Morse Treasurer, and Thomas H. Bush Secretary.
On motion of E. W. Morse it was Resolved that an order be entered for the Sale of certain farming Lands of the city prop- erty. Said Sale to take place on the 10th day of May, 1867, at the Court House.
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