Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-08-27
CITY OF SAN DIEGO
Boomers Galore in the Cali
fornia Town.
LOT SITES FOR MILES
WOULD ACCOMMODATES LONDON
WITH PERFECT EASE.
One Famous Town Site on Bottom Of
River-Speculative Feature
Burned High.
BY WILLIAM Z. CURTIS.

BY WILLIAM Z. CURTIS.
Special Correspondence of The Star and the Chicago
Record Herald.
SAN DIEGO, Cal, August 1S-Te city
of San Diego will be as big as London
when 1t Is built up. The city limits ex-
tend forty-seven miles in one direction
and include strip of land five miles wide
and more all around the edge of the beau
tiful bay. Town lots are plotted over that
entire area. even fifty miles from the
courthouse, and thousands of them have
actually been sold. Many people here
have faith that all the hopes upon which
this speculation was based will some day
be realized. Mark Tapley, in whom
Charles Dickens attempted to portray
the typical American boomer. was not a
circumstance to some of the people you
, meet here. Nowhere except at Winnipeg.
perhaps, has town-lot speculation been
carried to such an extent as in San Diego.
In 1887, at the heighth Of the boom,
additions were plotted SO recklessly
and the faith OF the public was so great
that millions Of dollars were invested by
strangers as well as citizens in property
they never set eyes on. One famous lad
dlt1on was at the bottom of river; two
extended for several hundred feet into
the bay, although the maps showed grad
ed streets, young trees, parks and ter
races. future hotels. sanitariums, opera
houses, soldiers homes, school houses and
rows of palatial residences, banks and
mercantile establishments Buyers sell
dom visited the additions to see what
they were investing in, but under the ex-
citement of speculation made large cash
payments. Hundreds of thousands of dol
lars were paid down for lots on alkali
wastes. tracts Of sand and stone, cactus
and CROSSWORD. They sold residence
Everybody went crazy. Within a few
months property on the business streets
which had been held al $500 for a lot 5Ox
$50 was actually advanced all the way
from $1,000 to $500 front foot. A small
corner lot is pointed out which sold for
$4,000 cash, and a hundred other bust
ness sites brought similar amounts. At
one time transactions in town lots were
conducted like the buying and selling of
grain or stocks on the eastern exchanges
Deeds were passed from seller to buyer
like warehouse certificates. Spectator
would buy number of lots in one of the
additions" today and sell them at an ad-
vance or at a loss tomorrow. Millions of
dollars were held by the real estate brok-
ers and auctioneers as margins. Interest
rat ties ran as high as l and per cent a
day. Ten and u per cent month on real
estate loans was considered reasonable.
Bottom Dropped Out.
The bottom dropped out of the boom on
the 1st of January. 1885, and everybody I'M
loaded or tried to unload at the same time
Before midsummer the city had lost half Of
it's population and half the money in it's
banks, but not before business and resi-
dence sites and several large tracts had
been permanently settled upon spectators
in every part of the country. / have fire.
quently heard 1t asserted that larger
number of non-residents own property in
this city than in any other city in the coun-
try. Every day or two real estate dealers
receive letters from New England villages
and -the-way places in New York and
Pennsylvania, inquiring as to the condition
of the real estate market and Offering for
sale lots which they purchased during the
boom times in 1851. The tax assessor
tells me that San Diego lot owners live in
every city in the United States.
There is large number of Idle people
here-''remitters.' they are cal!ed-people
with good incomes. who have been attract
ed here on account of the climate and be-
cause 1t is cheap place to live. They have
come from all parts of the country, particu-
larly from the northern states-retired mer
chants and professional men, and even
farmers. who have acquired a competence
and have settled down here in a modest
way to enjoy a few well-earned years of
ease. Many of them have left their farms
In the eastern states to the young folks or
have rented them on shares, deriving suf-
flcient income to enable them to live here in
a modest way. You can rent cottage any
where from $40 month upward, and all Of
the necessaries of life are so abundant that
prices are low.
An Ideal Home City.
San Diego is an ideal home city. The clim-
ate is perfect-never too cold or too hot
with perhaps the most even and regular tenn
perature OF any place in the country. AL
though one of the most southern towns in
the United States, on the very border of
mer than Duluth, Marquette, Mackin-
aw or Bar Harbor. 1t is the cool
est place on the Pacific coast. The
climate Is peculiar in that respect. Every
gins to come in from the ocean. This is the
regular trade wind of the Pacific, and 1t has
not failed since the memory of man. There
Is an interesting theory on this subject:
Back of the city to the eastward lies the
great Colorado desert. and the further you
go to the eastward the hotter 1t gets. so
that you can find temperature to suit any
taste or complexion. At Coronado Beach.
which is just across the bay, the thermom-
eter seldom gets above 20. night or day. and
you will need light overcoat the whole
year round. Fifty miles to the eastward. In
the desert, 1t is hotter than perdition. with
nothing but sun and sand. That intense
heat and dryness, according to the meteor
ologists, causing the rapid evaporation OF
all the moisture that floats that way. Gre
ateS a vacuum. which sucks in the cool at
mosphere from the ocean and starts the sea
breeze blowing. When the sun goes down
evaporation ceases and the wind dies out.
The ordinary sea breeze can be felt twenty
or twenty-five miles back in the country.
and the residents can choose for themselves
how much they want of 1t. II they do not
like to be cool they can move inland toward
the desert.
The average daily change in temperature
from day to day is 2 degrees. Ever since
the records have been kept this stationary
temperature has prevailed.
1t is always June in San Diego. Winter Is
the favorite season for strangers. probably
because it is less agreeable elsewhere; but 1t
is usually cooler here from the 1st of May
to the 1st of November than during the rest
of the year
Across the bay. on a narrow peninsula is |
Coronado Beach. with an enormous hotel |
covering four acres and costing $l,50oOO-
one of the largest and finest in the United |
States 1t was built in the days of the |
boom, and can accommodate from 800 to |
1000 guests. 1t formerly belonged to a |
stock company. but is now the property |
of Claus Spreckles, the San Francisco su- |
gar king, who owns almost everything |
else around here. and II is managed by |
Morgan Ross. who was brought up in the |
Arlington and the Ebbitt House OF Wash |
ington. From the LIST of November to the |
LIST of May the Coronado is crowded; every |
room Is taken. mostly by eastern people |
During the rest of the year there Is plenty |
Of room; but people are beginning to learn