community history pioneers dining fun neighbors shopping
1870 Mary Kearney obtains a deed from the city for the land, which will eventually become Hillcrest. The following year, real estate developers C. D. Arnold & D. Choate obtain, and then sell, the property to railroad tycoon George Hill. 1880 Fifth Street is the first road extended north from downtown. 1886 Elisha Babcock & Hampton Story launch downtown’s San Diego Streetcar Company, the first public transit system with cars pulled by a horse or mule. 1887 Electric Rapid Transit Company uses the newly invented power to connect downtown and Old Town (see page 77) with streetcars on Kettner Blvd. 1887 Wyatt Earp invests in uptown, purchasing the southwest corner of Fifth & University, and lists himself as a “capitalist” in the next year’s city directory. 1887 Thomas Crittenden files a deed for his addition, one of the first subdivisions north of the park (bounded by Robinson, Upas, Sixth Avenue & (now) Hwy 163. 1887 College Hill Land Association begins development of University Heights (HQ6). 1888 Uptown gets public transportation as the Park Belt Motor Road opens a tenmile loop connecting downtown, (what will be) Hillcrest, University Heights and City Park (HQ2), renamed Balboa Park in 1910. 1888 Alonzo Horton develops a subdivision north of downtown (bounded by Ash Street, City Park, Walnut Street and what is now Interstate 5). 1889 Brook’s Addition bounded by Second (now First), Sixth, Robinson and Brooks is deeded. (The street is now Brookes.) Nutt’s Addition (just north to University with the same east/west boundaries) is recorded next. 1890 San Diego Cable Railway Company opens a 4.7-mile line up Fourth, along University and then north on Normal and Park to Adams. Its 51,000-foot cable is driven by two coal-fired steam engines in a power plant at Fourth & Spruce. The following year it ceases operation and falls into bankruptcy after one owner vanishes with $200,000 and the other commits suicide. 1891 Sisters of Mercy (HQ5) open St. Joseph’s Sanitarium along University Avenue north of Seventh. The threestory hospital with 19 beds on a ten-acre site costs $5,000. (Can you spot any remaining structures?) 1892 John & Adolph Spreckels’ San Diego Electric Railway Company (SDER) is one of 25 serving San Diego; by 1909 it controls the entire city public transit system. The last trolley runs through Hillcrest in 1949 on its way to the Trolley Barn on Adams Avenue. 1895 Thirty-three women form the Wednesday Club (HQ3), a civic literary group. 1896 The Citizen’s Traction Company begins to serve uptown on the newly electrified route of the former cable cars before SDER takes it over. 1897 State Normal School (HQ4) is founded for the training of elementary school teachers and becomes the genesis for San Diego State University. 1902 George Marston (HQ3) travels east to hire a worthy landscape architect to design the 1,400-acre City Park. 1904 County Hospital (now UCSD Medical Center, see page 27) opens. A fourth floor is added in 1910 and a five-story east wing in 1926. 1905 The wooden Quince Street pedestrian bridge opens providing residents west of Maple Canyon access to the streetcar lines (see page 71).
31
services
Timeline connecting Hillcrest’s history