LOOKING BACK

LESLIE CRAWFORD COLLECTION

President Richard Nixon hosts a state dinner at the Hotel del Coronado in honor of Mexico’s President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz on Sept. 3, 1970.

THIS MONTH IN CORONADO HISTORY

Sept. 2, 1916

Army aviators first demonstrated airplane-to-airplane radio communication over North Island when Lt. William Robertson and Cpl. Albert Smith, flying in one plane, radiotelegraphed with a plane flown by Lt. Herbert Dargue and Capt. Clarence Culver.

Sept. 3, 1970

President Richard Nixon hosted a state dinner at the Hotel del Coronado in honor of Mexico’s President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz. Guests included former President Lyndon B. Johnson and California Gov. Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy.

Sept. 5, 1922

Dashing aviator Jimmy Doolittle, who enlisted at North Island’s Rockwell Field in October 1917, set a record for the first transcontinental flight. He flew 2,163 miles, leaving Neptune (Jacksonville), Florida, on Sept. 4 and landing at Rockwell Field 21 hours and 19 minutes later, on Sept. 5.

Sept. 7, 1944

Fort Emory at the end of the Silver Strand was formally commissioned by the Army and immediately went into operation, providing primary training in amphibious warfare.

Sept. 8, 1947

Sacred Heart Parish School, with grades from kindergarten through eight, opened with Mass at the church at 8 a.m. Early registration numbers were 236 children. Sister Mary Angela with a staff of five Benedictine sisters

from Atchison, Kansas, taught classes along with three music teachers. The sisters’ home, just east of the church, was constructed during this time, too.

Sept. 10, 1923

Coronado celebrated the total eclipse of the sun with “A Fete to the Sun.” Events included a flying circus and a pageant called “The First Born of the Sun,” a mythical story that cast hundreds of Coronado residents. The day finished with a Mardi Gras-style celebration. Reports of strange wind gusts, circus animals pacing and prostitutes going on their knees and vowing to change their ways were circulated but largely debunked. All agreed that the lighting was very strange when at the peak of the eclipse.

Sept. 21, 1927

In honor of Charles Lindbergh’s historic flight, Coronado joined San Diego in making Sept. 21 “Lindbergh Day.” Coronadans crossed the bay for a celebration at Balboa Stadium. Later, Lindbergh was greeted by Coronado Mayor Humphrey Stewart when he arrived by ferry. The Lindbergh procession passed hundreds of well-wishers on the way to the Hotel del Coronado where an elaborate fete, sponsored by the San Diego Chamber of Commerce, was held. The big dinner was a colorful affair. A notable feature was a mechanical replica of the Spirit of St. Louis, which circled the great banquet hall above the heads of the guests.

Sept. 24, 1915

Motion picture pioneer Siegmund Lubin formally opened the Lubin Studio at First Street and Orange Avenue with a magnificent WIKIMEDIA COMMONS reception that 1913 portrait of included former Siegmund Lubin President William Howard Taft and Marine Maj. Gen. Joseph Pendleton, who was a colonel at the time. After the party, “Retribution” — the first motion picture made by the studio — was shown to the attendees. Lubin was expected to bring great actors and actresses to Coronado for his many projects.

Sept. 26, 1935

President Franklin D. Roosevelt approved the agreement between the Department of the Navy and Department of War to transfer property between the Army and Navy, effectively giving North Island over to the Navy.

Sept. 27, 1956

The Coronado Police Department’s lost-and-found section included one glass eye. It was found at the Village Theater the prior night. Police were unable to say whether it was a right or left eye, but it was blue. Its replacement value was estimated at roughly $l00, but the eye was unclaimed.

A view of Point Loma overlooking North Island, shot from San Diego around 1899.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS / DETROIT PUBLISHING CO. COLLECTION

COURTESY OF HOTEL DEL CORONADO

In 1885, Elisha Babcock and Hampton Story bought San Diego Peninsula, the barren acreage that is now Coronado. They formed the Coronado Beach Co. and subdivided the land, offering lots for sale.

SanteeBeach?

Babcock and Story weren’t first entrepreneurs with big plans for developing Coronado

By GINA PETRONE

When Gen. Stuart Stanley suggested the name Miramar in January 1886 for a recently acquired peninsula, a mild insurrection occurred. There was talk about circulating a petition to keep the land from being named Miramar, which the appeal said had “an indistinct, flat and lifeless sound.”

Miramar had been the leader in a naming contest for what had been called the San Diego Peninsula. Other entries included Hiawatha, The Lido, Shining Shore, El Cosoy and Ojo del Puerto. The new owners of the land eventually settled on the name of their company: Coronado Beach.

Elisha Babcock Jr. and Hampton Story, who formed the Coronado Beach Co., had bought Coronado for $110,000 with grand visions. But they weren’t the first people interested in developing the shrub-covered land.

In January 1885, Capt. John Heerandner had filed a petition to establish a toll ferry service between San Diego and Coronado, but the petition was postponed for unknown reasons.

However, on June 27, 1885, the San Diego Union and Daily Bee reported that a syndicate was trying to purchase the land for $105,000. “Ferries, hotels, cottages for campers, etc., are reported as among the visions of the Peninsula’s future,” the report said.

Among the men in the syndicate

were Samuel R. Johnson and Lorenzo B. Williams of Omaha, Nebraska; brothers James and Thomas Evans from Council Bluffs, Iowa; William Evan from Chicago; and Thomas E. Metcalf, Edward P. Bosbyshell, Levi N. Breed, Mr. McFadden, Maj. Fallon and Milton Santee of Los Angeles. Most were prominent businessmen, bankers or cattlemen — and with the railroad extending to San Diego, they knew the area’s potential.

A contract was drawn and papers for the transfer were sent for signatures. The men came to San Diego, chartered a sloop and sailed to Coronado on July 4, 1885, to explore. But it was reported, the group, “not being sea faring men,” neglected to note the tide and ran aground. After a night with few provisions and claims of discovering an oyster bed, the men returned to San Diego sunburned but enthusiastic.

In a July 8, 1885, San Diego Union story, Stanley claimed to have envisioned a development as early as December 1884. His plan included a steam ferry system, tramways, large hotel, small cottages and masts with electric light but, he said, “I got but little encouragement at the time.” Stanley, who had a ranch in Escondido, served with Britain’s Royal Engineers in the Crimean war and opened a shortlived civil and military college in Old Town in September 1885.

According to an August 1885 letter from Johnson to Stanley, “Everyone in the syndicate stood ready to double his subscription to put the necessary improvements, such as putting in a ferry, wharves, street railway, across to the beach; a first-class hotel and water to make it the most pleasant resort on the Pacific Coast.”

The syndicate was ready to move forward, but there was a defect in the title regarding foreclosure of a mortgage. It contained so many errors that the men left San Diego, promising to return should the title be perfected.

A few weeks later, the San Diego Union reported that work to clear the title was underway and “the improvement of the Peninsula is likely to be realized in the not distant future” and will “cause the people of San Diego to smile with pleasure.”

By early September 1885, the title had been cleared and “there are unmistakable indications that those engaged in reviving it mean business,” according to a story in the San Diego Union.

There’s no mention of anyone in the syndicate returning to San Diego around this time nor does the article say who was “engaged in reviving” the matter.

But on Sept. 19, 1885, it was reported that First National Bank had expanded its board of directors from five to seven members. The two newly created seats were given to E. S. Babcock Jr. and Hampton Story. And on Nov. 22, 1885, the peninsula was sold for $110,000 to Jacob Gruendike, president of First National Bank, E.S. Babcock, Jr. and Hampton Story.

In a 1934 San Diego Union interview with Isabella Babcock, she recalled an 1885 afternoon lunch with her husband,

LESLIE CRAWFORD COLLECTION

A colorized postcard depicts Hotel del Coronado soon after it was completed in January 1888. But Hotel Del owners Elisha Babcock and Hampton Story weren’t the only entrepreneurs with plans to develop Coronado.

Elisha, and Story. She recounted the conversation as: “ ‘We’re too young to retire,’ he said to Story, who lay on a couch with his eyes closed, in the good old Mexican custom of the afternoon siesta. ‘We ought to build a hotel, Story — the biggest wooden structure in the world, the smartest resort hostelry on any coast — on that spot across the bay where we sunburned yesterday.’ Story just sighed and said he would give his answer the next morning.”

A July 1887 historical sketch of Coronado Beach in the Coronado Mercury claimed that Babcock and Story were part of that initial syndicate, though the two are never mentioned in connection with the peninsula until their purchase in November 1885.

Babcock and Story were most likely not part of the original syndicate, but once the out-of-town investors hit a snag, they seized an opportunity. The two helped clear the title and kept the development “local.”

They did have a connection with the original group of men.

Santee moved to San Diego in 1886 and worked with Babcock on the San Diego Street Car Co. and other ventures, but occasionally the two faced off in court. Babcock’s letters, archived at the Hotel del Coronado, often reveal frustration with Santee.

In 1890, Santee married Jennie Cowles, the widow of landowner George Cowles, for whom Cowlestown was named in East County. In 1893, Jennie Santee petitioned to change the name of Cowlestown to that of her new husband, Santee. The name stuck even though two years later, the couple moved to Los Angeles, where Milton Santee died in 1901.

What if the syndicate had purchased the peninsula in 1885?

It might have been named Estrella, Yalta or Cork. But it also could have eventually been called Santee.

Gina Petrone is heritage manager at the Hotel del Coronado.