USA > California > San Diego County > San Diego county, California; a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume I > Part 45
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has added to and improved it, always with the idea that one day "Tent City" was to be the largest and most unique resort in the west. Last year the manage- ment set about to make it an all year place of residence. Backed by Coronado's winter weather reports and the improvements that had been made on the camp it was felt that there was every assurance of success. Hundreds of the summer guests lingered two, three and four months after the season and many tourists from the east made Tent City their headquarters during the winter. This winter Tent City is a thriving little community and the spring months will probably find its population double what it is now.
In June, Coronado Tent City puts on its summer dress and for three months is the gayest, liveliest and healthiest resort on the coast. It is the management's desire that Tent City be primarily a family resort and for that reason has put its greatest efforts into making it refined and economical.
The tents are arranged in streets down the narrow peninsula. The word "tent" is scarcely the proper name for the little dwellings, as they are made with wooden frames, having matting covered floors and are roofted and thatched with palm leaves. The side walls only are of canvas. Along the boulevard facing the ocean, are the palm bungalows, built in a more pretentious style. All of the dwellings are fully and comfortably furnished and electrically lighted. The kitchen tents have full equipments of cooking utensils and crockery and are fitted with gas stoves. Life in Tent City combines the joys of camping out with all the comforts of home.
Tent City's business district occupies a block in the center of the camp. The stores are under the strict supervision of Mr. Hammond and no dealer is allowed to sell anything in the camp at an advance of regular prices. There are grocery, stationery, curio and candy shops, a Japanese tea house and bazaar, a perfectly appointed cafe, a lunch counter, and, most important of all to the women folk, a splendid delicatessen, where cooked foods of all kinds can be purchased hot.
As far as amusement is concerned, Tent City is ideally situated. There is not more than the distance of two city blocks from Glorietta bay to the ocean, and this situation gives great variety to the water sports. Among these, surf bathing and still water bathing in the bay come first. An entire absence of undertow makes the surf one of the safest on the coast. Bay and surf fishing are both excellent and launches make daily trips to the fishing grounds in Mexican waters, where big catches of tuna, albicore and barracuda are made. Boating also has its scores of enthusiastic devotees and the moonlight regatta given each year by the San Diego Yacht Club is one of the big events of the season. One of the milder but none the less interesting pastimes is clam digging and Coronado clams have a wide reputation among gourmets.
Tent City takes great pride in possessing the original "Joy Ward." This important section of the resort grows and changes from year to year as new- attractions are imported from the east. It is situated on the bay front and its gay colors and bright lights can be seen for many miles around the bay.
The greatest of the indoor amusements is dancing and the management has provided one of the largest and best halls on the coast for its guests. The dances are given every evening except Sunday, and it is at these events that one sees a justification for Mr. Hammond's pride in Tent City as a family resort. The note of rowdyism so apparent at most beach dance halls is conspicuous by its
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absence. One reason for this is that Tent City has a very large clientele of regu- lar guests who spend every summer at the resort. They are people of refinement and culture and their presence gives the camp its prevailing tone of friendly and refined sociability. The management appoints official chaperons for the dances, who see that everybody has a good time and that strangers are properly made welcome. The dance orchestra of eight pieces is under the supervision of Mr. Ohlmeyer and he takes the same interest in it that he does in his larger organizations.
To many, the main attraction of the suminer season is the Ohlmeyer Coronado Tent City Band. Mr. Ohlmeyer's name as a bandmaster ranks with those of Sousa, Damrosch and Herbert and his occupancy of the band shell at the resort during the summer months makes Coronado, for the time being, the musical center of the entire west. Next season Ohlmeyer will come to Coronado direct from an engagement at the country's greatest music center, Willow Grove Park, the Sousa stronghold in Philadelphia. The summer's music includes band con- certs afternoons and evenings, special concerts by the famous Ohlmeyer Octet, and, most important of all, the Ohlmeyer symphonies. As added attractions, each year Mr. Ohlmeyer brings to Coronado vocal artists of world wide reputa- tion. The band itself contains several of the country's best instrumental soloists.
Tent City is a veritable paradise for children. Their safety and pleasure have always been Manager Hammond's consideration. A large plaza is especially set aside for the little ones and it is filled with all the pleasure devices dear to the heart of childhood. There are seesaws, swings of all kinds, sand boxes, hor- izontal bars, miniature chutes, and burros. These little animals are great pets with the children, as are also the monkeys, Svengali, the seal, the Poliare, the big tortoise.
Adjoining the playgrounds is the outdoor swimming pool which is especially reserved for women and children. It is a fine, large cement pool ranging in depth from one inch to about four feet and with salt water continually running in and out. Life guards and swimming instructors are in constant attendance.
Tent City has a number of institutions for the pleasure and comfort of grown- - ups that are unique in a resort of this kind. The center of social activities is the club house, a luxuriously furnished building overlooking the bay. It has pianos, card tables, and a stage on which entertainments can be given. Almost every afternoon during the season the club house is the scene of a reception, sewing bee, card party, entertainment or informal musicale. The wide piazza facing the bay is a favorite afternoon meeting place with the ladies. A source of end- less comfort is also to be found in the spacious reading and writing rooms. Maga- zines are kept here and one is also very certain to find one's own home paper on file. Tent City itself publishes a paper, "The Tent City News," which appears weekly. For the convenience of those who do not care to tent, the Arcadia Hotel has been erected in the center of town. The bath house, boat house and indoor pools are also greatly appreciated conveniences.
Many special features in the musical, entertainment and festival line enliven the summer's program. Tent City's annual Fourth of July celebration is the big- gest day of the season. Thousands of dollars are spent each year on the trophies that are awarded the various winners of athletic events on this day. The Sousa festival given by the Ohlmeyer band is a celebration unique to Tent City and it
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draws hundreds of music lovers to the resort. The manager also imports profes- sional entertainers from time to time to amuse the guests and add variety to the summer's pleasure.
EL CAJON
A city making a bigger showing in building than any other in the United States, as late statistics show, must naturally force its way outward into the country territory, and the city of San Diego is spreading with wonderful rapidity in every direction possible for extension. Eastward, toward the mountains, the city like a tidal wave has swept to its boundaries and across them, following its highways and railroad systems, eating up vacant spaces on slopes and level lands and in canyons, and at this time is sweeping out more rapidly than at any time in San Diego's new lease of life-the last six years of its history.
The main highway out of San Diego city is El Cajon boulevard and its exten- sion through East San Diego, La Mesa, El Cajon valley, Lakeside and to the mountains. In much less than the six years three miles of vacant land east along the boulevard has been covered with streets and homes, and eastward along the San Diego & Southeastern Railroad to Foster, the railroad that parallels El Cajon boulevard and its extension, the city spreading movement is going on almost as rapidly.
In six years two new towns-Encanto, five miles out, and La Mesa, eleven miles ont-have sprung up. La Mesa became an incorporated city during the year of 1913, and Encanto is big enough to take on city government if its people wanted to do so; and all the way from San Diego city to the eastern boundary of La Mesa city, at the foot of Grossmont, through Encanto, Lemon Grove and La Mesa, city and town subdivisions succeed one another for thirteen miles.
Grossmont, towering over El Cajon valley and commanding a view of the county's whole mountain section, and of the mountains across the Mexican bor- der, and covering a vision of one hundred miles or more from the Pacific coast line-the homes of artists and lovers of scenic beauty-has been carved into home sites where artistic homes are built.
Commencing on the northern slope of Grossmont and extending for four miles north and four miles east, El Cajon valley, beautiful and as yet not half developed, commands attention as the next in order in the march of progress eastward from San Diego city.
EL CAJON CITY
El Cajon city-just created by the votes of its people-the youngest city in the southwest corner, covers the southwestern section of El Cajon valley for a space of two miles north and south, by the same east and west, about one-fourth of the area of the valley. From the business center of San Diego city to that of El Cajon city it is about fifteen miles by the highway and El Cajon railroad sta- tion is about the same distance from the San Diego & Southeastern station in San Diego.
The San Diego & Southeastern Railroad fills every requirement of freight and passenger traffic between San Diego and El Cajon. Eight trains a day each way give a service that is up to and even ahead of necessities and this splendid
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service has done much in the building up of the territory between San Diego and this town and valley.
Train arrival and departure times serve alike the tradesman, business man, professional or retired resident to whom the fifteen miles' travel from the center of business to a beautiful country home place is a pleasure rather than an inconvenience.
El Cajon has the advantage of being on the main county highway to the moun- tains and the splendid road built by the county highway commissioners during the last two years-one of the best roads in the southwest-makes traveling by auto or team very enjoyable.
Then El Cajon has been benefited by the very recent decision of the state highway commissioners to build the San Diego to Imperial valley highway through the town and valley. The local city club had been working for months on the state highway proposition, and its secretary, at a meeting of the commis- sioners held in Sacramento, represented the people from El Cajon to Descanso in the argument for the El Cajon-Descanso route to Imperial valley.
When built by the state the highway will pass through El Cajon's main center and on through the city and valley on its way east. The city will be held responsible for over two miles of construction of the highway, for state high- way funds cannot be spent within incorporated city limits and the people of El Cajon will cheerfully shoulder this responsibility when the time comes. For an expenditure of about $1,200 a mile the county highway commissioners built a highway through the valley that cannot be excelled in the county. The finest of decomposed granite surfacing is available in the hills around the valley and the natural earth of the roadway is, as a rule, good material for construction pur- poses. If this expenditure is doubled or trebled by the state road builders, the result will be a highway that could not be excelled. El Cajon could not be other than gratified with the decision of the state highway commission, for the advan- tages of being on a great route of travel from San Diego to Arizona and the east would be the greatest for the district that could possibly come to it.
El Cajon city is very small in population and the people deserve credit for the courage shown by them when, on November 12, 1912, they decided by a three to one vote, to take the responsibility of self-government upon themselves. The main consideration in the incorporation movement was centered around two things- the necessity for local laws governing the liquor question and good order, and the desirability of being able locally to handle the water supply and other public utilities.
The Cuyamaca water system, which serves El Cajon city and valley, is under consideration by the state railroad commission, and it is confidently expected that the commission will order the owners of the system to so develop it that the enormous body of water that yearly goes to waste down the San Diego river will be utilized so that every foot of workable land in the territory served will have all the gravity water necessary for a close settlement of a kind that will add enormously to the producing capabilities of the soil. Although El Cajon valley is fortunate in having a great body of underground water at varying depths, from ten to twelve feet down, it is recognized that nothing can do so much to the valley as gravity water in plentiful supply, and if the decision of the state
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commission is as favorable as circumstances surely indicate, then a great increase of land values all over the valley can be looked for.
The city of El Cajon is governed by a board of five trustees and all the neces- sary officials have been appointed by the board. Splendid ordinances have been made law by the board. The sale of liquor in any way excepting by druggists under medical orders is a serious offense. Liquor must not be given away or delivered, nor can orders be taken for its delivery in any public or business place or about the city's streets or byways, the only exception being the right of a person to keep it at home for private use. The carrying of weapons is strictly prohibited, speed in travel is limited to fifteen miles an hour and other laws for good order and street regulation have been passed, bringing El Cajon city up to modern standards in government and making it desirable in every way to live in.
All that is required is that the good laws now being made shall be carried out and El Cajon will be a model city. Past experiences have aroused the people to a sense of their duty as citizens in seeing that laws, when put into effect, shall be observed. and the new city fathers and officials will have the full cooperation of the people in law enforcement and regulation.
The trading places in El Cajon compare favorably with those of other up- to-date localities. The city is a trading center for the valley and for much of the country around it. It has three good general stores, a bank, three hotels, a newspaper, two drug stores, meat market, two barber shops, two real-estate offices, a big lumber and irrigation plant establishment, two blacksmith and machine shops, two livery barns, two restaurants, a bicycle repair shop and branch undertaking agency, and a shoe repair shop. Business in the town is on a good and healthy basis. Some of the business people have been in the district for many years, building up bit by bit, and holding the district's trade.
El Cajon has two mails in and out daily and its postoffice is the starting point for a big rural route that serves the whole valley and a mail to Bostonia and Dehesa.
There are two churches-Presbyterian and Roman Catholic-in the town; a grammar school, a physician and everything generally that makes up a good country town.
The El Cajon City Club, formed about four years ago, has done good work in promoting and carrying out various street and road improvements, in fighting for the local route for the state highway and in promoting and carrying to a suc- cessful issue, in the face of considerable opposition, the movement for city incorporation.
El Cajon Valley Improvement Association, a valley-wide organization, has its headquarters in the city of El Cajon. It is governed by a board of directors that represent the whole valley.
BOSTONIA AND SANTEE
Besides the city of El Cajon there are two other trading places in the valley -Bostonia, in the east end, and Santee in the north. Each has a store, post- office, school and church. El Cajon Valley Union high school, a fine institution that serves nine school districts and is one of the best of its kind, is located
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at Bostonia. There is a physician at Bostonia. It also has an Episcopal church, while the church at Santee is a Methodist.
Santee, three miles beyond El Cajon, on the railroad, is in the San Diego river valley and is growing very rapidly. A new hotel, Standard Oil depot, blacksmith shop and lumberyard are recent additions at this center.
The level lands in the valley are in use in grain fields, vineyards, deciduous and olive orchards and for dairying and stockraising. In the foothill lands around the edge of the valley are the citrus orchards and berry fields and there some of California's finest showings in lemons and oranges can be seen. The citrus men, in addition to flume water, all have good wells.
In an ordinary good year the exports of the valley amount to about eighteen million pounds by freight. Small fruits and some farm products go by express and for this no figures are available. Of these freight exports fruit amounts to eleven million pounds, roughly, over three-fourths of this being oranges, lemons and raisins, the valley's three main products.
From the Santee section milk and cream for the dairies and granite from the quarries are the main products. Big shipments of fruit from the famous Pepper Drive section in the valley go through Santee station.
The products of El Cajon valley can be greatly increased by closer settle- ment. There is much available land, both in the level section and in the foothills, and prices as yet have not reached to anything like those called for in similar districts elsewhere in the state.
SANTEE
Santee is one of the thriftiest, most prosperous and picturesque towns of San Diego county. It is situated in the north end of El Cajon valley, just at the point where that great agricultural station of San Diego's back country joins hands with the verdant fields of the mission valley. Eighteen miles from San. Diego city, on the main line of the San Diego & Southeastern Railway, Santee enjoys a splendid train service and excellent transportation facilities for its diver- sified products, having sixteen trains daily.
The name of the town-Santee-is derived from the name of the rancho, or' more properly, the name of the man who formerly owned that great section of country comprising several thousand acres of the most fertile lands of San Diego county. Like many other large ranches of California the Santee rancho was for many years owned and operated by one man and was cultivated princi- pally to hay and grain, thus keeping a great area of country very sparsely set- tled and giving but little evidence of its diversified productive qualities.
A few years ago, however, E. E. Campbell, a progressive business man, came out from the east and bought a large portion of the Santee rancho and began activities after the modern fashion. About one hundred acres adjoining the rail- road station were reserved for a town site and the remainder of the land was sub- divided into small tracts which have been very rapidly improved and now repre- sent scores of prosperous homes.
MAKES RAPID PROGRESS
Recently the Santee town site was placed on the market and owing to its unique location the well developed surroundings and its combination of natural Vol. I-25
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advantages, it has perhaps made the most remarkable progress of any new town in southern California. Today almost every regular line of business is repre- sented in the new town and every firm is doing a splendid business. New busi- ness houses are being erected and a number of residences are in course of construction.
Besides the commercial business houses of the place, Santee boasts a $10,000 hotel property that is modern in every respect and considerably in advance of the average town the size or age of Santee. Jesse D. Pritchard, who owns the hotel, is a live booster for Santee and predicts that the new home site is destined to become the greatest suburban city in southern California. Mr. Pritchard also owns and operates the Santa waterworks, which supplies an abundance of water to the people of Santee.
FIRST CLASS SCHOOL
Santee has a first class school, employing two teachers, and having a daily attendance of about sixty pupils.
The Methodists have a beautiful $5,000 church and as an illustration of the thrift of the community it might be well to state that when the church was recently dedicated there was not one cent of indebtedness against the new edifice.
Assurance has been given by the railway officials that Santee will have a new depot in the near future, the present quarters having become entirely too small and inadequate for the demands of the place.
The postoffice, which is conducted by the genial merchant, F. B. Holder, has recently been increased from a fourth class to a third class office. As yet the Western Union Telegraph and Wells Fargo express are both handled by Mr. Ward, depot agent, but the time is not far distant when these businesses must have down town offices as well.
PROSPEROUS SURROUNDING COUNTRY
To one not familiar with the country surrounding Santee the question might arise as to what real support the town might receive from the surrounding country. A few moments' survey of the country, however, soon answers this question. Passing up Magnolia avenue to the south, both sides of this boulevard are lined with new and thrifty looking little homes. Then turning to the east along Pepper drive, for more than two miles one may behold hundreds of acres of orange and lemon groves, peach and olive orchards, table grapes and raisin vineyards, intermingled with every variety of smaller fruits, flowers and berries known to southern California, and dotted by scores of the most magnificent coun- try homes to be found anywhere. In fact, it is only fair to assume that all the north half of the El Cajon valley is tributary to Santee. To the south and west are scores more of new small farms, still in their infancy, yet living demonstra- tions of Santee's successful future.
North of Santee are three of the largest alfalfa and dairy ranches in the county, owned and operated respectively by Messrs. Williamson, Balentyne and Kenny. East of these are dozens of smaller alfalfa and fruit ranches which extend from the San Diego river bottom back to the adjacent hills. Down the
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river is the great Fanita ranch, owned by Mrs. E. N. Scripps and comprising seven thousand acres. Here from sixty to seventy-five men are employed the year round and here $1,000,000 are being spent in improvements at the present time.
GRANITE QUARRIES
Besides being the center of the largest and best agricultural district in the county, Santee also has some of the finest grades of granite to be found any- where. Several large quarries are operated in the granite ledges in the hills just east of Santee and hundreds of cars of paving, building and monument granite are shipped from Santee each year. A granite polishing works is now being installed in the new town that will turn out the finished product directly. from the quarry.
LEMONS A VALUABLE CROP
The following from an address delivered by F. S. Jennings at a banquet given by the Chamber of Commerce at the U. S. Grant Hotel pretty thoroughly covers the lemon situation in San Diego county :
"It may be little known, even by our own people, that the area in which lemons may be profitably grown is comparatively small and is confined wholly to southern California. It lies along the western coast from the southern border of San Diego county reaching north to the Tehachipe range and extends inland not beyond a distance of forty miles. In no other part of the United States can they be successfully grown. Out of this small area, if we were able to take that part which is mountainous, hilly and above irrigation systems-for water is a vital and necessary element in the growing of lemons-and that part of such territory as lies in cold and wet valleys unfit for lemon culture, and that part that is now planted to other fruits and vegetables which may be profitably grown in California, we have possibly less than one per cent of the area I have mentioned in which lemon culture can be successfully carried on. Farther north than this area it is too cold; farther south, it is too hot; to the east it is both too hot and too cold, for the lemon can stand neither extreme, its blossoms fall- ing off at the touch of extreme cold or extreme heat. It may also be little known that there is no product grown out of the ground of which I have any knowledge which produces such a tonnage per acre as does the lemon. It must be picked every month in the year and every day in the year may be seen, side by side, on the same branch, blossoms, small fruit and ripened product. Seventy-five bushels of corn-about a ton and a half-would be considered a great crop anywhere. Fifty bushels of wheat, weighing an equal amount, would be extraordinary. Two hundred sacks of potatoes to the acre, weighing approximately ten tons, or eight tons of alfalfa, would be considered above the average of these products and yet every one of the better acres of lemons in southern California produces practically fifteen tons, or one carload a year.
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