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 9
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HORTON BUILDING, FACING PLAZA AT THIRD AND D
Erected in 1872 and designed to house the offices of the Texas & Pacific Railroad, which never occupied it. It served for many years as City Hall and was purchased in October. 1901, by John D. Spreckels, who used it as the office of the Union, and later, of the Tribune. Demol- ished in 1906 to make room for the Union Building
course. The great majority of San Diego people had never been two miles east of town and didn't know that they had any back country and didn't care, thinking bay and climate all sufficient.
Of the literature of the boom, it would be embarrassing to even attempt to describe it in all its richness and variety. The best writers in the land were brought to San Diego and gave their talents to the service of the real estate dealers. One of the ablest of these writers was Thomas L. Fitch, known as "the silver-tongued orator." Mr. Fitch easily outdid and outdis- tanced his fellow scribes in the glowing fervor of his panegyrics upon bay and climate. To this day, the old San Diegans break into sunny smiles when you speak of Fitch and his boom liter-
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FITCH'S FAMOUS "SPECIALS"
ature. Let us take a single sample, and allow the reader to judge for himself. This was an advertisement written for the firm of Howard & Lyons, and was No. 12 (there were many more) :
Special No. 12.
We knew it would rain, for all day long A spirit with slender ropes of mist, Was dipping the silvery buckets down Into the vapory amethyst.
We also knew it, because the wound which our uncle re- ceived in his back at the first battle of Bull Run (he was in Canada when the second battle of Bull Run was fought), throbbed all day Saturday. Now, if Saturday night's and Sunday night's rain shall be followed by one or more show- ers of equal volume, we will see our blear mesas covered with
STORE AT FIFTH AND F STREETS
Occupied by George W. Marston for many years prior to October, 1906, when he moved to the present building at Fifth and C Streets
the vernal and succulent alfileria and all the streams will be running bank-full. Then there will be-
Sweet fields arrayed in living green And rivers of delight.
Then the slopes of the arroyos will be flecked with the pur- ple violets and pink anemones and white star flowers, and over all the wind-blown heights the scarlet poppies and the big yellow buttercups will wave in the breeze like the plumes and banners of an elfin army. And when you behold the earth covered with fragrant children, born of her marriage to the clouds, and when you know that this charming effect of a few showers can be increased and perpetuated the year round with a little water from the mains and a little labor with hoe and
424
HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO
rake, you will be thankful to us for having called your atten- tion in time to the Middletown Heights' lots.
A NON-RESIDENT who invested during the Tom Scott boom, and who has failed to sell since, for the same reason that in- duced the teamster not to jump off the wagon tongue, astride which he fell when the runaway horses started-because it was all he could do to hold on-a non-resident has sent us the title deeds for several blocks of the Middletown Heights' lots, with directions to close them out. Our motto is: Obey orders if you break owners, and the lots are therefore for sale at one- fourth their present and one-twentieth their future value.
Call at our office, and our assistant will take you in the bug- gy and show you these lots. Two blocks of them are situated not more than three hundreds yards from the track of the California Southern Railroad Company, and a hundred yards further from the shore of the bay, and within a mile of the passenger depot. These blocks front India avenue and are in the slope at the base of the hill, just high enough to give you a good view of the bay and the sea. The Electric Motor Road will go up India avenue, and will pass in front of these lots. They will be worth $1000 each within a year. You can buy them this week for $125 each. It is a great chance-don't lose it.
Marcellus-Who comes here? Horatio-Friends to this ground.
What matters it, dear friends, who it is that writes these Specials. Howard says it is Lyons, and Lyons says damfino. Whichever of the firm it is, or whoever else it may be, the writer is doing a good work for San Diego, for these Specials are being copied in the Eastern press and are possibly induc- ing both people and capital to come here. We append here a copy of a specimen letter received by us yesterday from a flourishing New England city:
JAN. 26, 1887.
Messrs. Howard & Lyons, Gentlemen: I am well acquainted with the wonderful growth of your beautiful section of coun- try, receiving as I do papers, pamphlets and letters from wide- ly separated portions. In the San Diego Union I read your Specials concerning Oceanside and San Diego. I enclose check for $100, which please invest for me to the best of your judgment in a lot, as I have full faith that you will make good use of the money. Please give me a location with good view of the ocean. Very truly,
We shall reward this gentleman's confidence and good judgment by sending him a deed for a lot that will grow rapidly in value before next Christmas.
Our efforts, at considerable labor and some cash, to direct the attention of immigrants and investors this way, must ben- efit all San Diegans-even the other real estate men. Where- fore, beloved, begrudge not the writer of these Specials his in- cognito, nor seek to strip his mask from him lest you force him to seek security from curiosity in silence. Don't quote scraps from these writings to the individual yon suspect of being their author, and then wink at him. If the song of the
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ADVERTISING THE VIEW
nightingale please you, listen, and don't throw stones into the canebrake in order to get a glimpse of the beak of the singer. If the dish is palatable, eat, and be content not to know the complexion and genealogy of the cook.
Still, if you must know who we really are, we will tell you in striet confidence, only don't give it away. We are author of the Bread Winners and The Beautiful Snow. We composed the music of the great grasshopper song, There's Wheat By and By, and the hieroglyphs of our being, "S. T. 1860, X," are painted in white and black letters on the summits of the eternal hills.
We came to this earthly Paradise for our health; we con- cluded to go into the real estate business, and then we deter- mined to lift advertising out of its dull grooves and start it
COUNTY COURT HOUSE AS IT ORIGINALLY APPEARED
in new directions. In the latter determination we have suc- ceeded, for people read these Specials who usually skip the advertisements, and some have been known to peruse them who do not always read all the editorials.
If you would know more, come with us at nightfall upon the summit of yonder hill. The way is not long, though for a few dozen rods it is a little steep. Here we will halt. Here upon block 42, Middletown Addition, we are surrounded by a grander view thran can be seen anywhere else, even in this favored land. Loma to our right, with brow of purple and feet of foam outlined against a sky of crimson. Far down the southern horizon towers Table mountain, outlined against the gathering dusk. The electric lights glint across the bay to sleeping Coronado, and San Diego buzzes and hums at our feet. Would you know our secret? Gold alone will cause its reveal- ment. Buy these four lots on one of which we stand, pay us five hundred dollars in money for them-it will be an
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HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO
enchanting site for a home, and an investment which will return you thousands. We are-lend your car-we are either Howard or Lyons. You pays your money and yon takes your choice.
Walter Gifford Smith, in his Story of San Diego, draws the following picture of the boom at its height :
San Diego's growth was a phenomenon. The newly-built houses following the curves of the bay in their onward march
-
...
STEAMER SANTA ROSA
Which plied between San Francisco and San Diego for eighteen years, beginning in boom days and ending in July, 1907, and made a total of 910 trips between the two great seaports of California
of construction, occupied four linear miles and spread a mile from shore, covering the lower levels and climbing the barren hills. The business district traversed three miles of streets, and the population, at the close of 1887, numbered 35,000. At one time 50,000 people, from every State and Territory of the Union and from many foreign lands, were in the bay coun- try, trying to get rich in a week.
Land advanced daily in selling price, and fortunes were made on margins. A $5000 sale was quickly followed by a
427
PRICES "OUT OF SIGHT"
$10,000 transfer of the same property, and in three months a price of $50,000 was reached. Excitement became a kind of lunacy, and business men persuaded themselves that San Diego would soon cover an area which, soberly measured, was seen to be larger than that of London. Business property that had been selling by the lot at $500, passed through the market at from $1000 to $2500 per front foot. Small corners, on the rim of the commercial center, sold for $40,000, and for the choicest holdings the price was prohibitive. Rents corres- pondingly swelled. An Italian fruit vender, who used a few feet of space on the walk beside a corner store, paid $150
CAPTAIN E. ALEXANDER Who commanded the Santa Rosa in her long service between San Francisco and San Diego
per month for the privilege. The store itself, 25 by 50 in size, rented for $400 per month. A small cottage, shabbily built, with "cloth and paper" partitions, was competed for in the market at $60 per month. So general was the demand for homes and business quarters that the appearance of a load of lumber on vacant ground drew a knot of people who wanted to lease the structure in advance. Then the lessees camped out near by, waiting a chance to move in.
Labor shared the common prosperity. A dirt-shoveler got from $2 to $3 per day, according to the demand. The per
428
HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO
diem of carpenters and brick-layers was $5 and $6. Compos- itors on the morning press earned from $50 to $60 per week. A barber asked 25 cents for a shave and 40 cents for a bath. Liverymen demanded $2.50 per hour for the use of a horse and buggy. The time of real estate agents was measured by dol- lars instead of minutes. In the common phrase of the Ri- alto, "everything went,"' and he who had aught to sell, whether of labor, commodity, skill, or time, could dispose of it for eash at thrice its value.
Naturally a population drawn together from the adven- turous classes of the world, imbued as it was with excite- ment and far from conventional trammels, contained and de- veloped a store of profligacy and vice, much of which fonnd its way into official, business, and social life. Gambling was open and flagrant; games of chance were carried on at the curb-stones; painted women paraded the town in carriages and sent out engraved eards summoning men to their receptions and "high teas;" the desecration of Sunday was complete, with all drinking and gambling houses open, and with pic- nies, excursions, fiestas and bullfights, the latter at the Mexi- can line, to attract men, women, and boys from religious in- fluenee. Theft, murder, incendiarism, caronsals, fights, high- way robbery, and licentiousness gave to the passing show in boomtide San Diego many of the characteristics of the fron- tier camp. Society retired to cover before the invasion of questionable people, and what came to be known as "society" in the newspapers, was, with honorable exceptions here and there, a spectacle of vulgar display and the arrogant parade of reputations which, in Eastern States, had secured for their owners the opportunity and the need of "going West."
Speculation in city lots, which soon went beyond the scope of moderate resources in money and skill, found avenues to the country; and for twenty miles about the town the mesas and valleys were checkered with this or that man's "Addition to San Diego." Numberless new townsites were nearly in- accessible; one was at the bottom of a river; two extended into the bay. Some of the best had graded streets and young trees. All were sustained in the market by the promise of future hotels, sanitariums, operahouses, soldiers' homes, or motor lines to be built at specified dates. Few people visited these additions to see what they were asked to invest in, but under the stimulus of band music and a free lunch, they bought from the auctioneer's map and made large payments down. In this way at least a quarter of a million dollars were thrown away upon alkali wastes, cobble-stone tracts, sand overflowed lands and cactus, the poorest land being usually put down on the townsite market.
It should be added that the Chamber of Commerce exerted itself to expose and defeat these fraudulent schemes, generally with success. Most of the frauds were hatched in places other than San Diego.
Those who participated in these events and still live here, look back upon them with varying emotions. To some the memory
429
CRITTENDEN'S ENTHUSIASM
is painful. "The boom," says one; "well, that was the strang- est thing you can imagine. There seems no way to account for it now, except as a sort of insanity. All you had to do was to put up some kind of a scheme and the people who came here would put their money into it by the barrel." Another tells with glee of a sea-captain whom he drove about the city on his first visit, about the year 1875; and after seeing it all, said : "A very pretty little town, and the houses, they look just like
ROBERT W. WATERMAN
Bought Stonewall mine 1886 and developed it on large scale. In 1888 with others, began construction of San Diego, Cuyamaca & Eastern Railway, and shortly afterward purchased same. Came here to locate, December, 1890, immediately after retiring from Governor's chair, and died April 12, 1891
toy houses !" "Near the same time," says Captain J. H. Simp- son, "General Crittenden, who had been instrumental in get- ting a one-inch plank sidewalk laid on the east side of Fourth Street to the Florence Hotel, then recently built, stopped Mr. Edwin Goodall, of the Pacific Coast Steamship Company, on this notable walk, one day, and said to him: 'This is going to be a great city. We are going to have electric street railways, motor roads to National City and Pacific Beach, a ferry across
430
HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO
the bay, a big hotel on the peninsula, and many other things.' And then, pointing with pride to the sidewalk, he exclaimed : 'And we have this sidewalk !' "
It must be admitted, says Captain Simpson, that the boom was not an unmixed blessing. Evil as well as good resulted, and too many remember it with sorrow and anguish; yet the net gain to the city can scarcely be realized. I think it is twenty years in advance of what it would have been without it. . . The progress made in these two years (1886-88) was wonderful. The two great water systems were started and the bonds for the sewer system voted. Streets were graded and miles of sidewalks laid, wharf facilities increased, work commenced and nearly two million dollars worth of
SAN DIEGODAILY BEE.
VIEW OF THE CITY FROM EIGHTH AND A STREETS IN 1888
property sold on Coronado Beach and the great hotel planned, motor roads built, streets graded, and substantial improve- ments started in every direction.
Within this time, too, the city schools were systematized and several good schoolhouses built. The fire department grew in size and efficiency. And in brief the foundations of the pres- ent city were laid broad and deep.
One steamer in October, 1885, brought 80 new residents. Up to August, 306 buildings were completed in Horton's Addition in 1886, and the following month 200 new houses in course of construction in the city were counted. During this year there
431
STATISTICS OF BOOM DAYS
arrived 26,281, and departed 13,938 people, net gain in popu- lation 12,343. The total cost of the buildings constructed in the year was $2,000,000. The aggregate of real estate transac- tions was over $7,000,000. In the first six months of 1887, the lumber imported by sea measured 14,780,000 feet. In August, 1887, the transfers of property in Horton's Addition for one week amounted to $223,513, and for the other additions, $53,735. The week prior, the total transfers amounted to $500,951. In 1886 the number of business firms, professional men, etc., was
FIRST BAND IN SAN DIEGO, ORGANIZED IN 1878
340; in 1887 they numbered 957. The population increased in the same period from 8,000 to 21,000.
In the assessment roll for the year 1887, it appeared that 217 citizens were worth over $10,000. The total valuation of city property jumped from $4,582,213, to $13,182,171. In February, 1888, the total value of buildings under construction was $2,000,000. In the next month, 19,667,000 feet of lumber were imported by sea, and in April the total was 18,000,000 feet. A review of five months' property sales made in June, 1888, showed an aggregate of $9,713,742.
432
HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO
The custom house collections rose from $5,739, in 1885, to $10,717 in 1886; to $29,845 in 1887, and to $311,935 in 1888. The exports in 1887 were $165,909, in 1888 $371,360, and in 1889 $376,799. The vessels arriving and clearing showed a sim- ilar record.
The great register of voters of San Diego County, dated September, 1888, contained 9,921 names. Directories and news- papers of the time show that there were 7 places of amusement ; 20 architects; 3 expert accountants; 4 abstractors of title; 4 dealers in agricultural implements; 2 dealers in artists' mate- rials ; 3 teachers of art; 2 exhibitions of works of art; 1 assayer ; 9 artists ; 63 attorneys-at-law; 6 awning, tent, and sail makers ; 6 auctioneers ; 5 manufacturers of artificial stone; 20 shoemak- ers; 11 shoe dealers; 9 banks; 2 bands; 37 barbers; 15 black- smiths ; 12 bakers; 2 boat houses; 6 booksellers ; 9 bath houses; 5 wholesale butchers ; 2 bookbinders; 3 beer bottlers; 6 brewers' agents ; 7 brick companies ; 5 billiard halls ; 2 building and loan associations; 6 carriage and wagon dealers; 10 carriage and wagon makers ; 1 carriage trimmer; 11 country produce dealers ; 17 commission merchants; 10 civil engineers and surveyors ; 9 capitalists ; 5 cabinet makers; 3 foreign consuls; 5 collecting agencies ; 3 cornice works ; 11 clothiers ; 3 custom house brokers ; 18 confectioners ; 3 carpet dealers ; 2 carpet cleaners ; 4 dealers in Chinese and Japanese goods ; 4 dealers in curiosities ; 11 deal- ers in crockery and glassware; 5 coal and wood dealers; 87 car- penters ; 13 wholesale dealers in cigars and tobacco; 4 cigar man- ufacturers ; 46 cigar dealers ; 5 general contractors; 14 contract- ors and builders; 20 members of the builder's exchange: 37 dressmakers ; 11 dentists ; 8 dvers and cleaners ; 4 sash, door, and blind factories ; 13 druggists ; 15 dealers in dry goods ; 1 firm of wood engravers; 6 employment agencies ; 9 express, truck and transfer companies; 5 dealers in fish, game, and poultry; 13 dealers in men's furnishing goods ; 3 dealers in firearms ; 9 deal- ers in furniture; 3 wholesale grocers; 64 retail grocers; 39 hotels ; 2 hair stores ; 4 dealers in gas and lamp fixtures ; 1 man- ufacturer of gas and electric light; 7 dealers in hardware; 7 dealers in hay, grain and feed; 1 housemover; 4 dealers in harness and saddlery; 3 ice and cold storage compa- nies; 2 iron works; 1 dealer in iron and steel; 18 insurance agents ; 20 jewelers ; 1 junk store; 4 lumber dealers ; 3 libraries ; 24 livery, feed, and sales stables ; 75 lodging houses; 12 whole- sale liquor dealers ; 2 dealers in lime, hair, and cement ; 3 laun- dries ; 2 locksmiths and bell-hangers; 6 dealers in musical mer- chandise; 3 mortgage and loan brokers; 5 music teachers; 17 meat markets ; 2 grain mills ; 1 marble and granite works ; 3 man- ufacturers of mantels ; 15 newspapers and periodicals ; 2 dealers
433
NET RESULT OF THE BOOM
in mineral water; 10 milliners ; 2 midwives ; 3 nurseries ; 16 nota- ries public ; 5 news dealers; 3 oculists and aurists ; 7 photogra- phers; 4 planing mills ; 10 plumbers and gasfitters ; 4 pilots ; 3 pawnbrokers; 1 manufacturer of pottery; 1 firm of plasterers ; 3 dealers in pianos and organs; 73 physicians and surgeons ; 14 book and job printers; 6 dealers in paints and oils ; 18 house painters ; 238 dealers in real estate; 57 restaurants ; 2 railroad ticket brokers; 1 rubber stamp factory; 1 stereotyper; 2 shirt makers ; 2 ship chandlers ; 2 agencies for safe companies ; 2 soap factories ; 3 stair builders; 9 stationers; 5 second-hand stores ; 3 sewing machine agencies; 8 stenographers ; 71 saloons ; 5 deal- ers in stoves and tinware; 5 tinners ; 2 typewriters ; 16 merchant tailors ; 3 undertakers; 3 veterinarians; 4 water companies; 7 dealers in wall paper; 5 wharves ; 19 miscellaneous enterprises ; 12 public buildings and offices ; 2 public parks ; 3 cemeteries ; 13 schools and colleges; 17 churches and 36 societies.
The increase in the number of business firms, professional men, etc., in 1887 over 1886 was about 600.
These figures represent high water mark of the boom period, and in many respects have never been equaled since.
The great boom collapsed in 1888, the first symptom of strin- gency in the money market coming early in that year. Those who were speculating in margins threw their holdings upon the market, first at a small discount, then at any price, and before the close of the month of January, there was a wild scramble and confidence was gone. The establishment of a new bank in March did not have any immediate effect in restoring confidence. "Save yourself" was the sole thought of those who had been foremost in the gamble for the "unearned increment." During the spring and summer, all the floating population and much that ought to have been permanent, had faded away-some 10,000 of them. Not less than $2,000,000 of deposits were with- drawn from the banks, which were no longer able to make loans on real estate, and were struggling to keep themselves from enforced liquidation. All works of public and private improve- ment were stopped, and there was much distress among work- ing people. Thus the spring and summer passed in deepest gloom and foreboding, and actual suffering among those who had lost all. In the fall, a better feeling began to prevail. The banks weathered the storm, for the time being, and the citizens began to hope for a steady and healthful growth for the future.
What were the net results of the great boom? To a few indi- viduals, pecuniary profit; to many more individuals, loss and disappointment; to the real estate market, years of stagnation ; but to San Diego as a community, a large gain in permanent population and the most valuable permanent improvements-
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HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO
such a gain as certainly could not have been had in the same space of time by any other means.
It is a common saying that what a town needs is not a boom, but steady growth. Undoubtedly, steady growth is the health- ful condition and the one which ministers most to the comfort and prosperity of individuals. On the other hand, one of the most striking lessons in all human history is found in the fact that individuals are often sacrificed to the good of the commu- nity, or, as the philosophers put it, "to the welfare of the social organism." This was true of San Diego in the period of the great boom. It is probably no exaggeration to say, as Captain Simpson did, that the city "is twenty years in advance of what it would have been without it." It is due to the truth of his- tory that this should be said, yet it is also true that those who have the best interests of San Diego at heart-those who regard its best progress and highest welfare as something not neces- sarily synonymous with rapid advances in real estate values- pray that there may never be a repetition of the wild orgy of speculation, and that never again may the future be discounted as it was when the frenzy reached its height.
CHAPTER III
GROWTH OF PUBLIC UTILITIES
ERY early in the Horton period, the citizens of San Diego began to realize the future impor- V tance of various public utilities and to plan ways and means for meeting the need. Water, sewerage, light, facilities for transportation -- these things must be provided if a city of consequence were destined to rise upon the shores of the Bay. Although the boom of 1886-88 gave the greatest impetus to the growth of public utili- ties, the beginnings of several of them went farther back.
In the spring of 1870, Wm. H. Perry and others undertook to provide San Diego with gas. Machinery was brought by steamer and installed, in June. The venture was not a success, however.
In March, 1881, the matter was again taken up by a number of citizens. The San Diego Gas Company was organized in that month, and in April, articles of incorporation filed. The incor- porators were: O. S. Witherby, George A. Cowles, Dr. R. M. Powers, E. W. Morse, Gordon & Hazzard, Bryant Howard, and M. G. Elmore. The capital stock was $100,000, and works cost- ing $30,000 were erected immediately, on the present site of the gas works-Tenth and M Streets. The fires were lighted for the first time on June 2, 1881. The fuel used was petroleum. Elmore, who held one-fourth of the stock, was a representative of the Petroleum Gas Company. The plant was thought to be sufficient for a city of 20,000. The number of subscribers at the start was 89.
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