The Spreckels Theatre was built in 1912 in the heart of San Diego's Theater District by sugar magnate John D. Spreckels. The building was praised for its modern design, as it had no columnns or pillars which would interfere with patrons' views of the stage. The stage itself was one of the largest in the world at the time, and even by modern standards, the theater is regarded as state-of-the-art. The theater accommodates 1,915 guests, a number chosen to correspond with the 1915 Panama-California Exposition.<br><br>The building was designed by architect Harrison Albright, who built the theater in the baroque style, with numerous allegorical paintings and a large painted mural above the stage. The Grand Lobby's walls, ceilings, and stairs are faced in Predora onyx and the original stained glass window above the theater entrance was created by Tiffany Studios.<br><br>Over the years, the Spreckels has hosted some of the city's finest performances. It was built to host live theatrical performances, and in its early years the theater functioned primarily as a vaudeville house. With the growing popularity of motion pictures, however, the theater was modified in 1931 to allow for movie screenings. In the ensuing years, the Spreckels has hosted theatrical productions, first run films, touring acts, and comics. The theater has operated almost continuously over the last century, with only brief interruptions for renovations.&nbsp;<br>

When the theater opened in 1912, it was one of the largest in the nation.

Spreckels Theater was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

More Info

Spreckels Theatre opened in 1912 with a grand celebration that coincided with the opening of the Panama Canal. The theater has changed hands, but with only a few exceptions, it has been in operation since the time of its opening. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

The Spreckels  Theatre

Admin

This short walking tour includes stops at a dozen museums, historic buildings, and landmarks in downtown San Diego in just about one mile. The tour ends just a few blocks from the city's naval history museums along the waterfront. Enjoy!

<p>The building, which is now on the National Register of
Historic Places, was built with 437 rooms and luxury in mind by Ulysses S.
Grant, Jr. In 1919, Baron Long made the hotel enormous profits by finding ways
to secretly sell alcohol during Prohibition. Long acquired partial interest in
the hotel and completed the lower level rooms, including the ballroom, and added radio towers atop the building--and upgrade which eventually led to President Franklin D.
Roosevelt delivering an address to the nation from the hotel's radio station.</p>

<p>Another change of&nbsp;ownership occurred at the end of World War
II. New owners made a number of changes including adding the Grant Grill. It
was hugely popular and was the site of a sit-in by a group of female attorneys
in 1969 to protest gender inequality: at the time, women weren’t allowed inside the establishment until 3 p.m. The policy was eventually
changed. </p>

<p>Time had taken its toll by the late 1970s. The shine of the
fancy hotel had dulled. There was talk of tearing it down to make room for
new development. Christopher “Kit” Sickels bought the building in 1979 and
successfully got it added to the National Register. In 1983, he found investors for major renovations and began bring the luxurious hotel back to life. The
final bill for the renovation was $80 million. New city developments were
underway in the area but Sickels couldn’t afford to wait. He sold the hotel to
a Japanese brand. </p>

<p>In 2003, the hotel was sold again, this time to Sycuan
Tribal Development Corporation with the sovereign Tribe of the Kymeyaay Nation,
which originally owned the land where the hotel stands. They renovated it again
for $56 million and then added another $13 million redesign completed in 2017.
Today the hotel is a vibrant and popular place in downtown San Diego. It also
boasts an art collection valued at $6.5 million.</p>

The luxurious US Grant Hotel was born to be a top-shelf hotel. It opened in October of 1910 after five years of construction. The downtown San Diego building cost $1.9 million and became a local sensation. It drew thousands of curious people for its grand opening. Built in honor of former president Ulysses S. Grant, the Hotel also features the world’s first electrically lit fountain, designed by the hotel's architect Irving Gill and given to the hotel as a gift from the city of San Diego. 

The US Grant Hotel

In
1923, the owner/developer of the property signed the largest motion picture distribution
contract in California, thus anticipating the cinematic trend for downtown San
Diego. A
five-story structure, occupying three 50' x l00' lots fronting Fourth and E
Streets at right angles,&nbsp;the Balboa&nbsp;was downtown San Diego’s first large-scale movie
theatre and cost $800,000. When
first built, it was a state-of-the-art building that included six storefronts
along Fourth Avenue, with 34 offices on the floors above. The
architect, William Wheeler, was also an accomplished musical performer, who
built many features into the interior that enhanced the acoustics and
performance spaces. In addition, there
were ornamental niches on both sides of the proscenium arch which featured
waterfall mountain scenes, originally&nbsp;enhanced by&nbsp;real flowing&nbsp;water. (It now does so again,
after the recent restoration.) <span>Original
performers who appeared at the Balboa include the popular vaudeville act
Fanchon &amp; Marco and such silent movie stars as Conway Tearle and Corinne
Griffith.<br><br></span>After
a number of years as a silent movie house and vaudeville hall, the theatre was
reopened in 1930 as El Teatro Balboa, featuring contemporary films from Mexico
City and presenting Latin stars to San Diego’s increasingly diverse audiences. During
World War II, the theatre’s office space was used by the US Navy, reconfigured into bachelor quarters for sailors
waiting to ship out. After
the war, the remodeled spaces became single-occupancy housing. <span>In
1959, the Russo family of San Diego acquired the building and saved it from
potential demolition, running it as an action movie house.<br><br></span>The
City of San Diego purchased the property in 1986. Plans were made to demolish it, but percussionist
Steve Karo started the organization Save Our Balboa to rescue the theatre. In
1996, the Balboa Theatre Foundation (co-founded by Karo)&nbsp;successfully nominated the building to the
National Register of Historic Places with the express purpose of saving it from
demolition. <span>In
2002, the City’s Redevelopment Agency committed to retain the theatre and fully fund its $26.5 million restoration and rehabilitation,
on the condition that it be reopened as a community performing arts center to
be managed by the organization San Diego Theatres. <br><br></span>It
was restored in accordance with the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for
Rehabilitation of Historic Buildings. The
restoration has included: extensive seismic retro-fit to meet current
requirements; replacement of infrastructure, including electrical, plumbing,
HVAC, and life safety; the installation of state-of-the-industry theatrical lighting and audio; and
audience accommodations including new seating. In
addition, a full restoration of the theatre’s original mural designs (painted
over by previous owners) was made; these designs were&nbsp;based on old photographs of the original
theatre’s interior. <span>Also,
a recreation of the original “Balboa” sign (again based upon old photos)&nbsp;that originally graced the outside
of the theatre above the marquee was constructed and installed. <span>For
fiscal year 2012, there were 73,352 in attendance at the theatre, 115 days of
use, 78 performances and revenues totaling over $1 million.<br><br></span></span>Originally,
the theatre had a pipe organ which was moved in 1929 to what is now Copley
Symphony Hall in the city. To
replace it after the restoration, the organization purchased and restored, at a
cost of $1.1 million, a 1929 Wonder Morton organ, one of only five such
instruments in the world. (It had originally been constructed for a movie house in
Queens, New York.) <span>The
4-manual, 23-rank Wonder Morton Organ made its debut performance in the Balboa
Theatre on September 27, 2009.<br></span><br>

The Balboa Theatre is located in the heart of downtown San Diego, CA, adjacent to the historic "Gaslamp Quarter," and is part of the Horton Plaza area. It was originally built in 1924 as a silent movie house and opened in March of that year, with a seating capacity of over 1500. Designed by architect William Wheeler, it has been called "one of the best commercial examples of the Spanish Colonial style in San Diego, borrowing directly from the [1915 Panama-California International] Exposition and utilizing many of the same contractors, designers and craftsmen." The theatre suffered decades of disuse, but in the early 21st Century was restored over a three-and-a-half year period at a cost of $26.5 million. It re-opened in January 2008 as a performing arts center with a seating capacity of over 1300. One of the last remaining theatres from the 1920s still in existence in San Diego, it was voted by CNN as one of the world’s 15 “most spectacular” theatres. It was entered into the National Register of Historic Places in 1996. 

Balboa Theatre

Few visitors to San Diego's Horton Plaza take notice of the large, ornate clock near its center, but the Jessop's Street Clock was once one of the city's most well-known attractions. The clock originated with Joseph Jessop, when he was still living and operating a jewelry shop in England. He and his wife traveled to Switzerland, where clocks adorned many businesses and public spaces. He was especially interested in one intricately designed clock, and drew plans for a replica of the clock for himself.<br><br>Jessop moved his family and business to San Diego in 1890, and in 1904, he began making plans for a clock like the ones he'd seen in Switzerland. The construction of the clock was the work of Claude D. Ledger, a Jessop and Sons employee and graduate of the Elgin Watch School.&nbsp;<br><br>A foundry was built behind Jessop and Sons on F Street in downtown San Diego. Every part used in the clock was manufactured in the foundry. The clock also includes several gemstones--agate, jade, topaz, and tourmaline--all mined in Jessop's own mines in Mount Palomar and cut by hand in his shop. At the time, the Jessop clock was the most jeweled clock in the United States.&nbsp;<br><br>Construction of the clock took fifteen months. It stands 22 feet tall and features 20 different dials, twelve of which give the time in locations around the world. Many of the clock's moving parts are gold-plated, giving it an estimated worth in the millions.&nbsp;<br><br>The Jessop clock made its public debut at the 1907 Sacramento State Fair, where it won a gold medal. (The medal, which was displayed openly with the clock, disappeared.) While on display in 1907, a small child became entranced by the clock's movements. At that time, the movement was not yet encased in glass, and the child placed a small wooden bear on the swinging pendulum. The bear proved impossible to remove and has remained on the pendulum ever since, eternally swinging with the clock's pendulum.<br><br>The clock stood outside Jessop and Sons for eighty years, until the business relocated to Horton Plaza in 1984 and the clock was moved to the new location. Over its long lifespan, the clock has kept time flawlessly, stopping only on a few occasions. The first of those occasions, was on the day that Claude Ledger died. The clock stopped for no apparent reason--a coincidence which was written about in Ripley's "Believe It or Not."

A fixture of downtown San Diego for over a century, the Jessop Street Clock was once of the city's most famous attractions. The intricately designed clock was the brainchild of Joseph Jessop, and was designed by one of his employees, Claude Ledger. The Jessop clock made its public debut at the 1907 Sacramento State Fair, where it won a gold medal. The clock was moved to Horton Plaza in 1984. 

Jessop's Street Clock 

According to the Gaslamp Foundation:<br><p>"This building is San Diego’s first granite building that was pre-built on the east coast and sent around Cape Horn to San Diego.</p><p>This is the great example of Baroque Revival Architecture. The four story building housed the Bank of Commerce till 1893 when Isidor Louis opened an oyster bar that became a favorite of Wyatt Earp.</p><p>The upper floors later became the Golden Poppy Hotel, a notorious brothel run by fortune teller and early marketing genius, Madame Cora. Her ladies would parade through the streets by day and hand colored marbles that matched the color of their dresses to potential clients. At night, the 'gentlemen' would bring their colored marble and be directed to a room of the same color to meet their colorful 'lady.'"</p><p>While living in and utilizing the oyster bar, Earp is said to have won a horse as one his many winnings at the gambling tables found within the bar.&nbsp;</p><p><br></p><br><br>

Long considered the historic Gaslamp District's "Jewel," this building of two towers was completed in 1888. The Bank of Commerce until 1893 when one, Isidor Louis purchased the building. Louis opened an oyster bar here that is said to have been a favorite of Wyatt Earp's when he retired to the area. With the bar on the ground floor, the upper floors became a brothel, named the Golden Poppy Hotel. Until 2014 the building was operated as an historic stop of Wyatt Earp history. 

Louis Bank of Commerce

The historic plaque found on the building states the following:<br><br>"33 Nesmith-Greely Building, 1888. The Romanesque Revival style of this four-story structure is revealed in its brick coursing and circular lower elements capped by simulated stone towers. The face of the building retains its original appearance, with the exception of the fire escapes. The building is named for Thomas Nesmith, President of the Bank of San Diego, and Major General Adolphus Washington Greely. One prominent tenant was Clara Shortridge Foltz, the first woman attorney admitted to the California Bar Association."<br><br>

Constructed in 1888 and located in San Diego's historic Gaslamp District, this Romanesque Revival Style building has maintained its original appearance, sans the five more modern fire escapes. The building is named after Thomas Nesmith and Major General Adolphus Washington Greeley. The former was president of the Bank of San Diego and the Citizen’s Committee of 40 (established in 1870), while the latter was  an Army officer stationed in the area. A building designed to house politicians and businessmen and their offices, one other prominent tenant was Clara Shortridge Foltz, the first woman attorney admitted to the California Bar Association. Today it holds office buildings and a bar & grill. 

Nesmith-Greely Building

<p>The building was designed by the Reid Brothers and is five stories in a Romanesque Revival style. The Keating was one of the most ornate buildings in the city at the time of its completion, leading to many of the city's attorneys and professionals. The building was also home to the San Diego Public library prior to the completion of their building at 8th and Avenue and E Street which served as the home of the library until the completion of their current building in 2013. &nbsp;</p><p>The Keating Building&nbsp;was home to the first elevator in the city. Today, this elevator is the only steam-powered elevator in the region. The elevator made headlines and led many of the leading attorneys and professionals to desire an office in the top floors of the Keating Building. The building served as office space for Henry Lord Gay, the founder of the American Institute of Architects. T.J. Sloan, a famous photographer, also maintained an office at the Keating Building among many of the leading professionals in the city.</p>

<p>Today the hotel is owned by Pininfarina, the Italian design team responsible for Maserati and Ferrari. It was their first endeavor into the hospitality industry. The Keating Hotel is the first hotel project for the company.</p>

The Keating Building, now home to a luxury boutique hotel, was built in 1890. Fannie Keating led the effort to design and build the structure as a tribute to her late husband, George J. Keating. The couple had moved to California from Kansas in hopes that the region's climate would help the ailing George Keating. The couple made a significant fortune with their business which provided farm equipment, and they were looking forward to spending more time together in their new home. Unfortunately,  George Keating died just a couple years after moving to San Diego. The building's top floors were home to a number of offices for attorneys and local companies while the first floor held the city's public library from 1901 until 1903. Keating's name remains at the top of the building. 

Keating Hotel Building

Wilcox was born in Chatham, now East Hampton, Connecticut in 1823.&nbsp;In 1848, when he first came to&nbsp;California&nbsp;around&nbsp;Cape Horn, his ship brought California's first lighthouse. In 1849, taking command of the 120-ton topsail schooner&nbsp;<i>Invincible</i>, Wilcox carried U. S. Army engineers to&nbsp;San Diego<span>&nbsp;with the aim to divert the San Diego River from its outlet in San Diego Bay into False Bay (now Mission Bay). Upon his return to San Francisco he was ordered to carry relief supplies for starving 49ers on the wagon trails to California, up river to Sacramento.<br></span><br><div>On November 1, 1850, the <i>Invincible</i> was sent from San Francisco on a mission to deliver 10,000 rations to the garrison of the remote post of Fort Yuma on the Colorado River. Captain Wilcox was in command of the 12–man crew, and Lt. George H. Derby was in command of the mission to see if the rations could be delivered by the schooner up the Colorado River from the Gulf of California. Up to this time Fort Yuma had been supplied over land from San Diego, across the coastal mountains and the Colorado Desert. This route, which&nbsp;proved difficult and expensive, lead to a ration shortage at the fort.</div><div><br></div><div>The schooner arrived in San Diego to pick up the rations, then proceeded to the mouth of the Colorado River, stopping only at Cabo San Lucas and Guaymas. The <i>Invincible</i> arrived at the river mouth on December 25. Captain Wilcox then ascended the river but with difficulty. <i>Invincible</i> drawing 8 feet of water was grounded at every ebb tide which was extreme in the Colorado River Delta. On January 3, 1850, some 30 miles up river Captain Wilcox was forced to drop anchor, his way blocked by shoals too shallow to pass. Local Cocopah people there that day agreed to carry a message to Fort Yuma of the arrival of the ship.</div><div><br></div><div>After waiting without answer to their message until 11 January, Derby, who due to an old and inaccurate British chart of the river mouth, believed the fort to be nearby instead of 120 miles away and attempted to continue up the river to reach the fort with the ship's longboat. Two days later they met the fort commander, Major Samuel P. Heintzelman coming down the river in a boat. Arraignments were made to unload the boats at the ship's anchorage on the shore of Sonora and loaded onto wagons from the fort on 28 January. The <i>Invincible</i> returned to San Francisco. Subsequently, Wilcox was for many years stationed at San Diego.</div><div><br></div><div>In late 1852, Captain Wilcox joined George Alonzo Johnson and his partner Benjamin M. Hartshorne to form the George A. Johnson &amp; Company and obtain the next contract to supply the fort. Wilcox and his partners, all having learned a lesson from their failed attempts ascending the Colorado and with the successful example of the Uncle Sam, brought the parts of a more powerful side-wheel steamboat, the General Jesup, with them to the mouth of the Colorado from San Francisco. There it was reassembled at a landing in the upper tidewater of the river and reached Fort Yuma, January 18, 1854. This new boat, capable of carrying 50 tons of cargo, was very successful making round trips from the estuary to the fort in only four or five days. Costs were cut to $75 per ton versus the $500 per ton cost of shipping over land.</div><div><br></div><div>As a result of the mining boom along the Colorado River and in the interior of Arizona Territory from 1861-1864, and the resulting profits of his steamboat company, Wilcox was becoming wealthy. On April 16, 1863, Wilcox married Maria Antonio Arguello one of the daughters of Santiago E. Arguello and moved south of San Diego, to a new house overlooking San Diego Bay, on the Rancho La Punta one of the Arguello family ranchos, on the road to what is now Tijuana, Mexico. Wilcox and his wife had a son and two daughters.</div><div><br></div><div>Wilcox enjoyed sailing and in 1865 acquired a catboat and enlarged it to sloop rigging, as the Yacht Restless which he would sail up and down the bay between his Rancho La Punta and the city of San Diego.<br><br><div>Two years after the competition of opposition steamboats was defeated and a monopoly on the river was achieved in 1867, the George A. Johnson and Company brought in more partners and created the California Steam Navigation Company, which now included a steamship line that ran from San Francisco to connect with their steamboats at their port and shipyard at the mouth of the Colorado River at Port Isabel, Sonora. This move doubled the revenue of the company.</div><div><br></div><div>That same year Wilcox purchased Rancho Santa Ysabel and eventually ran the largest sheep herd in San Diego County. The following year the Julian Gold Rush began near Wilcox's ranch. In 1872, Wilcox financed a wagon toll road to the gold fields from San Diego that was not only shorter than the old wagon road but also enabled heavy equipment to be brought to the mines. Wilcox also joined in organizing the Commercial Bank of San Diego, and was a director and its president. A few years later it was consolidated with another bank.</div><div><br></div><div>On May 21, 1877, just as the railroad reached the Colorado River, Wilcox and his partners had sold out their interest in the Colorado Steam Navigation Company to the Western Development Company, a holding company for the owners of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Wilcox, Hartshorne and another partner John Bermingham, kept the steamship SS Newbern, and formed the California &amp; Mexican Steamship Line to continue the still profitable portion of the coastal trade between San Francisco and the ports of La Paz, Mazatlán and Guaymas in Mexico.</div><div><br>In 1879, Captain Wilcox moved from San Diego to San Francisco. Four years later, he died from a complication of several diseases he had been suffering from for several years, on August 15, 1883.<br><br>The Yuma Building (from San Diego Downtown news):<br><br><div>"Like many historic buildings Downtown, it is not surprising that this building began as a one-story structure [when finished in 1869]. Brick-laying began one year before the death of Wilcox, commencing in April of 1882. Construction was completed by June and the building was ready to rent to boot and shoe salesman Franklin J. McIntosh. An old 1883 Sanborn Fire Map describes the structure to be 25 feet by 65 feet with a slate (or tin) roof and a frame porch in front.</div><div><br></div><div>A two-story addition based on plans by architects Armitage and Wilson was completed in June of 1888 and included 16 office rooms with bay windows and a large skylight. Additional features were large cellars and storage rooms. The building was named the Yuma in reference to Capt. Wilcox’s experiences in that location along the Colorado River. In 1901, the office spaces were converted to furnished rooms and the building was referred to as the Santa Ysabel, then in 1910, as the Grant until the early 1930s."</div></div></div>

One of the first brick structures in San Diego, the Yuma Building was completed under the supervision of Captain Alfred Henry Wilcox who later acquired the building. Wilcox was a sea captain, Colorado River pioneer, and steamboat and steamship entrepreneur. The building is named in honor of Wilcox's Colorado River pioneering days around the village (now city) of Yuma. This building was completed in 1869 and it's history parallels the often colorful history of the neighborhood. For example, the building was at the center of the great Stingaree Raid of 1912 as part of the city’s efforts to rid the red light district of prostitution. In recent years the building has been home retail shops and apartments. 

The Yuma Building

This 1882 building took over a decade to construct due to lack of supplies and cash. Many donations, searching, and fundraising events finally gave the community of Odd Fellows and Masons what they needed to construct this Classical Revival style building. When the cornerstone was laid, a parade was held. Both the Odd Fellows and Masons shared this building until 1910, when the latter moved into a new hall made just for them. This building, more specifically the second floor, is still in operation by the local members of the Odd Fellows. 

Independent Order of Odd Fellows Building (San Diego)

<p>Davis married Maria de Jesus Estudillo, who came from a
wealthy San Diego family. This led Davis to become interested in trying to
create a new city closer to San Diego Bay. Davis bought pre-fabricated houses
and began creating a bayside town called, “New Town.” There was no potable
water there and not many people were interested in living there. Shortly after,
Davis’ fortune was mostly destroyed in a fire, and he gave up on his idea.</p>

<p>Alonzo Horton came to San Diego in 1867 and picked up where
Davis left off. Horton is now considered the Father of Diego. Davis died broke
in 1909 and still claimed to be the founder of New San Diego. </p>

<p>Today, there is a street named after him and his home is the
oldest remaining in the area now known as the Gaslamp Quarter. Today the home
serves as a museum that tells the story of San Diego. </p>

<p>&nbsp;</p>

<br><br><br><br>

The William Heath Davis House is the oldest surviving structure of New Town, now San Diego’s downtown. Today it is the Gaslamp Museum. Davis was born in Hawaii in 1822 and moved to what is now San Fransisco when he was 17. He was an adventurer and became a wilderness guide in the Sacramento Valley. By the 1940s, he started his own shipping business and made a fortune selling supplies and land to people who came to California for the gold rush. 

William Heath Davis House

The Horton Grand Hotel was built in 1887 during San Diego's railroad-driven economic and real estate boom in the late 1800s. The hotel was built with obvious European influences, notably the Innsbruck Inn in Vienna, Austria. It is the oldest hotel in San Diego.<br><br>Both the hotel and the saddlery were located on F Street. But in the 1970s, when both buildings were scheduled for demolition, developer Dan Pearson saved the structures by having each one meticulously dismantled, cataloged and stored, and then rebuilt with painstaking precision in 1984 on Island Avenue.The new hotel reopened in 1986, on the hundredth anniversary of both of the original establishments.<br><br>Looking at the hotel today, there is a marked difference in their architecture. The original Grand Hotel, built by German immigrant Peter Mayerhofer, is an intricately detailed Italianate Victorian construction. The other structure, the former saddlery which once boasted Tom Mix and Roy Rogers as patrons, is a far less ornate building, combining a king of cowboy sensibility with a dose of Victorian Americana. In the building's lobby is a permanent relic of its time as a saddlery, a papier-maché horse called Sunshine. As if the building needs to further cement its cowboy past, it can claim to be the home of Wyatt Earp for six years in the 1880s and 1890s.<br><br>To add a final dash of character to the Horton Grand, the rebuilt structure was built on the site of a notorious house of ill repute, Ida Bailey's Canary Cottage, which was once one of the most well-known such establishment in the city's infamous Stingaree district.&nbsp;<br><br>The Horton Grand Hotel was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

Located near San Diego's historic Gaslamp District, the Horton Grand Hotel is actually a restoration of two hotels, the Grand Horton and the Brooklyn Kahle Saddlery. Still a working hotel, the Grand Horton was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

Horton Grand Hotel 

<p>Although San Diego's Chinese American community is not as large and its historical district is not as famous as San Francisco's Chinatown, it is home to this impressive museum that preserves Chinese American art and culture. The historic district is known as the Asian Pacific Thematic Historic District. The area consists of roughly eight blocks between Market Street and J Street to the north and south and Second Avenue and Sixth Avenue to the west and east. Part of this area overlaps the Gaslamp District. At most, the neighborhood was home to a population that could be numbered in the hundreds, primarily Chinese and Chinese-Americans who were not permitted to live in other parts of the city.</p><p></p><p>Like all immigrant communities in America that were held on the margins, many in this community struggled with poverty and its related problems - especially as police were willing to allow vice districts to develop in immigrant neighborhoods. An area known as the Stingaree became a haven for gambling, prostitution, opium dens, and other types of illegal activities. In an effort to "clean up" the area in preparation for the Panama-California Exposition of 1915, many of the neighborhood's buildings were simply demolished. While the Chinatown neighborhood never entirely disappeared, it had diminished considerably following World War II and the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act.</p><p></p><p>San Diego's Asian Pacific Thematic Historic District was established in 1987, and encompasses old Chinatown, the Japanese Nihonmachi, and the Filipino Quarter. The district consists of 22 buildings dating from 1883 to 1930. These include the San Diego Chinese Center and the San Diego Chinese Historical Museum. The museum dates to 1996 and is housed in a former Chinese mission which was rescued from demolition and moved from another location to its present address. The museum includes thousands of artifacts and a Chinese-style garden with a gate dedicated to Sun Yat Sen.</p>

<p>Downtown San Diego is home to an eight-block historical district that preserves the history of Chinese Americans and their descendants. At the center of the district is the San Diego Chinese Historical Museum.   The organization was founded in 1986 as the San Diego Chinese Historical Society of Greater San Diego and Baja California by Dorothy Hom and first president Sally Wong-Avery.  The museum has been open to the public since 1996, offering extensive exhibits about Chinese and Chinese American history, art, and culture, a garden as well as cultural events and celebrations throughout the year.</p>

Downtown San Diego

The Spreckels Theatre

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources

Additional Information