USA > California > San Diego County > San Diego county, California; a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume I > Part 12
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53
When we got to Old Town they were taking the goods out of the wagon, and this Mr. Morgan said to me :
"Well, Horton, how do you like the looks of San Diego?"
"Is this the great San Diego you were talking so much about?" said I.
"Yes."
"Look here, are you telling me the truth?"
"Sure; this is San Diego; what do you think of it?"
"I would not give you $5 for a deed to the whole of it-I would not take it as a gift. It doesn't lie right. Never in the world can you have a city here."
Mr. Morse was standing by and heard this. He had a store in Old Town and was one of the first men here in San Diego. He was one of the smartest men they had here and has always been one of our best citizens. When he heard this he said to me (and these were the first words he ever spoke to me) :
"Where do you think the city ought to be?"
"Right down there by the wharf," I replied. "I have been nearly all over the United States and that is the prettiest place for a city I ever saw. Is there any land there for sale?"
I thought then that if I could buy twenty or forty acres there, that I would be satisfied. Mr. Morse said:
"Yes, you can buy property there by having it put up and sold at auction."
I found out that the old city trustees were holding over. The pueblo had some debts and no income, so they did not want to incur the expense of holding an election. I said right away that that was illegal and that the old trustees could not give a good title to the property and that there would have to be an election called. They could call a special election by giving ten days' notice and I asked
91
HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO COUNTY
who the man was to call the election. Morse pointed out a tall man on the other side of the plaza and said:
"There is Mr. Pendleton crossing the plaza. He is county clerk and clerk of the court and can call an election." I went across to meet this man and said to him :
"Mr. Pendleton, I came down here to buy some land and help you build up a town, but I find the old town trustees are holding over and cannot do anything legally, so I want you to call an election."
"I shan't do it, sir. The town owes me enough, already."
"Mr. Pendleton, how much would it cost for you to call an election?"
"Not less than five dollars."
I put my hand in my pocket and took out ten dollars and handed it to him and said: "Here is ten dollars; now call the election."
He wrote three notices and I put them up that night in conspicuous places, and that was the starting of San Diego. Morse went with me to show me what would be good land to get hold of and showed me what is now called Horton's Addition.
They had to give ten days' notice before the election could be held. While waiting for the time to pass, a doctor at Old Town asked me to go out on the mesa with him to shoot quail. I went out on the mesa with him and I asked him how it was that since coming here my cough had left me? I had had a hard cough for six months and began to feel alarmed about it.
"Well," said he, "that is the way with everybody that comes here. They all get well right off, even if they have consumption."
When Sunday came, I went to the Catholic church service at Old Town. Father Ubach was the priest in charge and he was a young man then. When they passed around the plate I noticed that the contributions were in small coins and the most I saw put in was ten cents. I had $5 in silver with me, rolled up, and I put that on the plate. This attracted considerable attention and Father Ubach, among the rest, noticed it. After the service he came and talked witlı me; asked if I was a Catholic. I said no. What church did I belong to? I told him none. What was I there for? I told him about that and about the election. He asked me who I wanted for the trustees. I said I wanted E. W. Morse for one and I did not know the business men very well, but I thought Joseph S. Mannasse and Thomas H. Bush would be satisfactory for the other two. He said immediately: "You can have them." When the election came off, these three men were elected, having received just thirty-two votes each.
Mr. Morse was the auctioneer. The first tract put up extended from where the courthouse now is, south to the water front and east to Fifteenth street, and contained about two hundred acres. My first bid was $100 and the people around me began to giggle and laugh when they heard it. I thought they were laughing because I had bid so little, but on inquiring what it was customary to pay for land, I was told that $20 was a good price if the land was smooth, or about $15 if it was rough. I did not bid so much after that. The pueblo lands had been surveyed into quarter sections by the United States surveyors. I was the only bidder on all the parcels except one, and I bought in all about a thousand acres at an average of twenty-six cents an acre. On a fractional section near where Upas street now is, Judge Hollister bid $5 over me. I told him he could have it,
92
HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO COUNTY
and then he begged me to bid again. I finally raised him twenty-five cents and then he would not bid any more, but said:
"You can have it. I wouldn't give a mill an acre for all you've bought. That land has lain there for a million years, and nobody has built a city on it yet."
"Yes," I said, "and it would lay there a million years longer without any city being built on it, if it depended upon you to do it."
After the auction and before commencing work on my land, I thought I would go back to San Francisco and close out what business I had left there. I had the deeds from the trustees put on record and then when the steamer came took passage back to San Francisco. I told my wife I considered I had made a fortune while I had been away and she was wonderfully well pleased.
I had lived in San Francisco about two years and was well known there, and after I returned large crowds came to ask for information about the new city by the only harbor south of San Francisco. I told them all about the harbor, the climate, and so forth, and what a beautiful site it was for a city. General Rosecrans was one of these visitors, although I did not know him at the time. He came to me a little while afterward and said he had heard about San Diego before, but had never heard its advantages so well explained. He thought he would like to go down and see it and to make a trip from San Diego to the desert, to see if a railroad could be built from San Diego eastward. He said if it could, my property was worth a million dollars. "Well," I' said, "come on." So we came down to San Diego (it did not cost him anything for steamer fare), and we got two teams, one for passengers and the other for provisions, etc. and started. E. W. Morse and Jo Mannasse furnished the teams, and they and two or three other people went along. We went first down to Tia Juana and from there about a hundred miles east to Jacumba Pass, where we could see out across the desert. General Rosecrans said to me: "Horton, this is the best route for a railroad through the mountains that I have ever seen in California." He said he had been all over the state and he was now satisfied that Horton's property was well worth a million dollars. I said: "I am glad you are so sanguine about the prop- erty." Coming back through where San Diego now is, he said to me: "If I ever have a lot in San Diego, I would like to have it right here." I said I would remember him when the survey was made and after it was completed I made him a present of the block bounded by Fifth and Sixth, F and G streets-block 70, I think it is. He had not asked for anything and did not expect to be paid, but he thanked me very kindly. Two years from that time I paid him $4,000 to get that block back again and I sold half of it afterwards for more than I paid him.
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 a 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 property 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
93
HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO COUNTY
Rosecrans asked me afterwards why I did not accept the offer. He 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.
FIRST BUILDING BECOMES A HOTEL
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 William 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 looking for a location, and I wanted to get a hotel started. So I told 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.
Well, I got everything closed up in San Francisco and came down here and began work. I surveyed the land. I also began 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 arrange- ment, 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 altogether $45,000. This Judge Hollister, the same man who bid against me for the last parcel of land I bought from the city trustees, was the assessor, and he assessed the 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 these men: "Don't pay it, you fools; you will be giving Horton 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 build- ings were finished. They said they would do that and they went ahead and put up twenty buildings, 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
94
HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO COUNTY
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 ( 1909) 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 some one else." He went back to San Francisco and told people there was no use for anybody 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 (republicanism) 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 copper- head hole in California."
I said: "I will make it a 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 republican. 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.
Nobody here had any money to hire men but me. I employed in building, sur- veying, 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 San Diego and I hired him to paper this old building that I had sold to Dunnells. He was four days doing the work and I gave him for it 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.
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 whitewash 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 to whitewash them all over, and I would not do it, but still offered to furnish
95
HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO COUNTY
the brushes and lime, so they finally finished the job themselves. The houses then made a fine show and people 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 ninety-six sleep- ing 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 thousand. I bought two steamer loads of lumber and used it in the building.
FIRST BANK 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 eighteen inches thick, twenty-four inches wide and twelve feet long for the foundation, laid on top of this foundation. The building was finished in about a year. I used the building 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 cer- tificates 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. Outside 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 property cheap. None of these houses cost less than $500; one cost $3,000, and the rest cost $1,500 apiece. I rented these buildings 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 for thirty of these buildings, by people who wanted to buy right off and move into them.
HAS STEAMSHIP RATES REDUCED
After I had built the Horton House, I went to San Francisco to get Ben Holliday 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.
96
HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO COUNTY
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."
"You do it if you can, 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 William 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 & Company, 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, 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 re- member, 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 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 anything 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 made with me.
"Well," said Holliday, "I will agree to that."
RO
HORTON HOUSE AND PLAZA IN 1899 Present Site of U. S. Grant Hotel
1
111
711
اسـ
U. S. GRANT HOTEL ÅND PLAZA, 1912
97
HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO COUNTY
"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 i . but I said: "Do it, or I'll have nothing more to do with you"; so finally he ag ced 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 it 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 run- ning. 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 sub- scriptions e ugh 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 > build the line from Los Angeles?" He said that he lacked about $5,000 of h. ving enough. I said: "What will you give me if I make up the amount ?" He said: "If you 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 work- ing order in the Horton House. Quite a number of people around town had sub- scribed, but there was not enough pledged to secure the line. E. W. Morse was appointed to collect the subscriptions but I furnished the $5,000 that was lack- ing to secure the extension. Within three years I got my money back and a little more.
SELLS THE PLAZA TO THE CITY
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 Horton 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 d., it. Before the sale was closed, a man from Massachusetts wanted that ground and after he had examined the title offered me $50,000 for it. I went to the men I had had the most talk with, and asked them if they would not let me . 11 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 Vol. 1-7
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.