San Diego Yesterday

The dairy industry was once big business in San Diego. In the 1950s, dairy products were the third largest agricultural product in the county. One in fifteen San Diegans were connected in some way to dairying, according to one estimate. Mission Valley, today’s center of shopping malls and condominiums, was filled with dairy farms.

It began in the 1880s . . . the Dairies of Mission Valley.

Before freeways, sports stadiums, and shopping malls. Special Collections, San Diego Public Library

The City of San Diego today took steps to force the San Diego Electric Railway company to continue railway service on Adams Ave. “War to the limit” on the illegal and unlawful methods of the street car company, which on Saturday night started to tear up its tracks in defiance of the law, was declared at the city hall.  –-San Diego Sun, August 28, 1922.

It was cars versus streetcars in The Battle of Adams Avenue.

A streetcar from the San Diego Electric Railway

The library at San Diego State University has unveiled an invaluable tool for researching local history: a digitized database of the San Diego Union and Evening Tribune. This product by NewsBank Inc. is keyword searchable and provides pdf images of the original newspaper copy.

For decades local researchers have relied on the microfiche index to the Union produced by city librarians years ago. As important as this index as always been, it was never completed by the Public Library and was limited by the infamous “gap”—the years between 1904 and 1930 that were left un-indexed. The NewsBank database bridges that gap and also covers the historic Tribune, a separate newspaper until its merger with the Union in 1992. The digitizing is not yet complete and some years are not available.

I would encourage anyone looking for historical information in San Diego newspapers to make a trip to the SDSU library. Parking is a minor hassle but there are several lots on the campus perimeter that cost $1 per hour. The best way to go is on the San Diego Trolley, which takes you close to the library from a station in the center of campus.

San Diego Union, June 27, 1926

San Diego, San Pedro and Santa Barbara have become the focal point of the rum runners operating on the Pacific coast . . . It is believed that the bulk of the rum fleet will arrive in southern California waters, literally flooding this part of the state with booze of all descriptions. –San Diego Union, May 12, 1925.

The “noble experiment” of Prohibition, which outlawed most manufacture, sales, and transportation of intoxicating liquor, began in 1920 with the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment.  An assortment of unintended consequences accompanied Prohibition, including a stunning rise in organized crime, such as the lucrative  “rum running” trade from America’s “Wet” neighbors—Canada and Mexico.

The story of The Rum Runners.

I’m not particularly a fan of e-readers but some people swear by their Kindle or Nook.  And now The Way We Were in San Diego is available as an ebook for $9.95.  Here’s a link for the Kindle version: http://www.amazon.com/The-Way-Were-Diego-ebook/dp/B007T9D41C/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1

And here’s the Nook version from Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1105947483?ean=2940014474238

Babe Ruth in 1921. From Library of Congress.

George Herman Ruth, world’s greatest baseball player, came into our midst on the noon train today slanting one eye at his traveling bag and the other at the overcast sky. “Low visibility,” quoth the Babe. “But if the raindrops will stay away for a short time I guess I can get the range and park a few baseballs on the far side of your famous stadium.”
–San Diego Tribune, October 29, 1924.

The story of a barnstorming Babe Ruth when he hit homers in City Stadium: Babe Ruth in San Diego.

Opening day, June 7, 1890.

One of the great needs of San Diego for some time past has been a system of cable street railroads. This improved method of covering long distances in cities has become very popular in all of the metropolises of the country, and it has been one great improvement in which San Diego was deficient.
–San Diego Union, June 9, 1889

The story of San Diego’s Cable Cars.

The abandoned Narwhal on the mudflats off National City. Courtesy San Diego Maritime Museum.

A ship without a country,

A mast without a sail.

Then someone swiped the galley range,

And that’s the Narwhal’s tale!

The story of a famed American whaleship that ended it’s days on a beach in San Diego: The Narwhal.

Postcard of Houdini and Bess from the book "Houdini His Legend and His Magic" by Doug Henning.

In October 1907, the famed magician and escape artist Harry Houdini appeared in San Diego. Known at that time as “the Handcuff King,” Houdini performed for three nights at the Grand Theatre on Fifth Street. I cover this story in my book The Way We Were in San Diego.

While researching the Houdini visit a postcard image of the magician was pointed out to me by John Cox, who writes a superb blog called Wild About Harry. When I first saw the undated image I thought it must have accompanied Houdini’s 1907 visit to San Diego. But Houdini’s physical appearance seems wrong for that year. He would have been 33 years old at the time and probably looking much younger than the postcard  image.

"Handcuff Harry Houdini" circa 1905

Here’s another photo that’s dated 1905–only two years before Houdini’s San Diego performance. 

The postcard image raises a question: did Houdini return to San Diego in a later year? Did he perform again, or was he just vacationing with his wife Bess?

And here’s another mystery. In July 1935, nearly a decade after Houdini’s death, his widow Bess came to San Diego and visited the California Pacific Exposition. A reporter from the San Diego Union quoted Bess as saying “Here it was that Harry and I spent our honeymoon 40 years ago.”

This was nonsense; the Houdini’s married in 1893 and it would be years before they ventured to Southern California. But it seems likely that the world’s most famous magician and his wife Bess did return to San Diego at some date after his 1907 performance at the Grand Theatre. Perhaps they vacationed here during the 1915-16 Exposition?

San Diego newspapers for that era are unindexed but available for research on microfilm at the San Diego Public Library. Perhaps a definite answer will be discovered there.

“You can’t parade. Our orders are to prevent it.” In a moment there was a seething, screaming mass around the policemen. Staves and sticks began to fly. –San Diego Sun, May 31, 1933

The story of a student demonstration that turned into a riot: The Young Communists.

Courtesy San Diego Police Museum.