The Ocean Beach Historical Society Presents: San Diego Yesterday Featuring Richard Crawford, Thurs., Oct. 17th at 7PM at P.L. United Methodist Church, 1984 Sunset Cliffs Blvd., Ocean Beach.

San Diego today is a vibrant and bustling coastal city, but it wasn’t always so. The city’s transformation from a rough-hewn border town and frontier port to a vital military center was marked by growing pains and political clashes. Civic highs and criminal lows have defined San Diego’s rise through the 19th and 20th centuries into a preeminent Sun Belt city. Historian Crawford recalls significant events and one-of-a-kind characters that laid the foundation for the San Diego that we know today. Richard Crawford is the Supervisor of Special Collections at the San Diego Public Library. He is the former archives director at the San Diego Historical Society, where he also edited the Journal of San Diego History.