Yesteryear The Golden Age of Coronado Polo

Charlie Chaplin, far left, and Maj. Colin Ross, far right, c. 1921 [CHA] The first two decades of the 20th century saw a blossoming in Coronado of visitors, residents, style, and abundance. A year after the Coronado Library was established in 1890, President Harrison visited the island, breakfasting at the Hotel Del. The dream of the Coronado Beach Company and its investors was coming to fruition, the Hotel Del well established and celebrated, residences built and inhabited. Culture and vibrancy were well on the rise in 1905 when J.D. Spreckels commissioned the Coronado Country Club to be built and the polo field laid out on the southern side of the Spanish Bight. The lure of the luxury sport of polo in the gentle warmth of Coronado proved strong. The Country Club offered a racetrack, tennis courts, golf links, a noteworthy grandstand, and an exclusive club for members. The initial membership fee was $25, with annual dues of $10. Only the grandstand and grounds were open to the public. By 1913, the reputation of Coronado on the international polo circuit was such that a laudatory essay by the journalist-explorer Lewis Ransome Freeman was published in “Sunset, The Pacific Monthly” of February 1913, a copy of which is held in the Coronado Historical Association (CHA) collection. Freeman was a famous war correspondent and adventurer, whose praise of Coronado for polo ran along these lines: “…a chestful of the ozone that blows across the Coronado polo field from the Pacific on an afternoon in February is champagne, an inspiration, and makes you realize that you are getting more out of yourself and your ponies than you ever suspected was there to get out.” He describes the players from around the world who hold Coronado in the highest esteem for their sport, declaring that …”not a one of the old polo ‘Meccas of the Faithful’… has gained the hold on the affections of so many players of the game as has Coronado…” The essay includes a dramatic photo of a Coronado match taken by Harold A. Taylor, many of whose photos of polo spectators of the time are held in the CHA collection. His signature can be seen at the bottom right.

In 1907 Maj. Colin G. Ross of the Canadian Army (having established the High River Polo Club in Alberta, Canada) turned up in Coronado and was tasked by the Spreckels company to “take charge of polo activities at Coronado.” The season extended from Jan. 1 to March 20, and Coronado held primacy as “… the winter polo resort of America.”

Before match play was discontinued in 1926, both professional players and notable amateurs rode the field, including Charlie Chaplin, yet another Englishman who made good in America.

Thirty years later, Ross published an article in the “Coronado Journal” describing those golden pre-World War I years of Coronado polo and decrying the subsequent loss of luster. “Coronado Country Club had three perfect polo fields at that time—1910…Today, those fields…have been made into very bad golf holes.” Ross died in Coronado in December 1938 at his home on First Street. The heyday of Coronado polo had passed, along with its champion. In the coming years, the Navy and the demand for housing in postwar Coronado would subsume the southern shore of the Spanish Bight along with the bight itself and all of North Island. The stylish era of the polo pony went the way of the orange trees and streetcars on Orange Avenue.