When Pacific Beach was founded in 1887 its founders also built a railroad to connect the new community with downtown San Diego. The San Diego, Old Town and Pacific Beach Railway ran between the site of the current Santa Fe station on Broadway and a depot near the foot of Grand Avenue in Pacific Beach, following a route east of Mission Bay and around the race track at the northeast corner of the bay, then along today’s Garnet, Balboa and Grand Avenues to the beach. In 1894 the railroad was extended to La Jolla along what are now Mission Boulevard, La Jolla Hermosa Drive, Electric Avenue and Cuvier Street to a station on Prospect Street. The Pacific Beach and La Jolla railroads became the Los Angeles & San Diego Beach Railroad in 1906 (although the tracks never advanced beyond La Jolla). In 1907, after the race track in Pacific Beach had closed, the line was shortened by cutting through the former race course over what is now Grand Avenue from Mission Bay Drive to Lamont Street.

The trains to Pacific Beach and La Jolla consisted of one or more coaches and a mixed baggage car pulled by small steam locomotives, although between 1907 and 1914 some of the daily trips were made by McKeen gasoline-powered rail cars. In the days before paved roads and the automobile, these trains were the only practical way to travel to and from San Diego. However, after the turn of the twentieth century automobiles became increasingly popular and the roads were improved, giving north coast residents another travel option. In 1919, claiming that receipts from operations were insufficient to meet operating expenses and interest, the LA & SD Beach Railway received permission to discontinue service and dismantle its tracks. Although civic organizations in San Diego, Pacific Beach and La Jolla opposed its closure, none were able to offer an alternative and the railroad was scrapped.

Efforts began almost immediately to re-establish a rail link between San Diego and its northern suburbs. In 1915 a bridge had been built across the entrance to Mission Bay and an electric railway line called the Bay Shore Railroad built from Ocean Beach over the bridge and through Mission Beach as far as Redondo Court. The Bay Shore Railroad connected with the Point Loma Railroad, an electric street railway which ran between downtown San Diego and Ocean Beach. In January 1919 a group calling itself the La Jolla Electric Line proposed laying 2100 feet of new track to extend the Mission Beach line to Grand Avenue in Pacific Beach, from where it could continue to La Jolla over the former LA & SD Beach right-of-way. These new sections would then be electrified, completing an electric railroad all the way from San Diego to La Jolla.

The La Jolla electric company’s proposal of 1919 was never implemented but the concept of an electric railroad between San Diego and La Jolla via Mission Beach was adopted a few years later by the San Diego Electric Railway Company, operator of San Diego’s extensive street railway system and part of the Spreckels commercial empire.  In March 1923, the SDER and the Mission Beach Company jointly announced what was called the greatest single development project since the preparations for the Panama-California Exposition in Balboa Park; a project to make Mission Beach the finest and highest class beach resort in America – an all-year resort open and operating 12 months in the year. This project would include express electric railway service to and from San Diego, much of it double tracked and largely on private right-of-way. The San Diego common council awarded the SDER a franchise to build the proposed Mission Beach line in April 1923.

The SDER planned to lay tracks on Kettner Boulevard and Hancock Street from Broadway to Witherby Street, along the right-of-way of the former LA & SD Beach line. The tracks would then cross over the Santa Fe railway and the paved Point Loma highway and continue to Ocean Beach on a new route across the mud flats and marshes that are now the Midway district. From Ocean Beach the new line would continue to Mission Beach over the Bay Shore Railroad, which the SDER planned to purchase and absorb.

The SDER plan did not initially propose extending the line beyond Mission Beach, but in May over 700 La Jolla residents signed a petition asking the common council for an extension of the route to their community. At the time the SDER was pressing the city to extend its franchise for 50 years, and it offered to build to La Jolla if the extension was granted. A 50-year franchise covering the SDER’s entire system, including the route to La Jolla, was approved by the council in September 1923.

Construction of the new electric line began in October 1923. The Evening Tribune announced that ‘dirt was flying’ on Kettner Boulevard for the biggest electric railway construction job in the history of San Diego, the double-track speed line to Mission Beach. The Tribune article noted that the project would include extension to La Jolla and construction of a great amusement center in Mission Beach. The new line would have the catenary type overhead wire for pantograph collectors that are specially designated for high speed operation. There would be no grade crossings; a long trestle would bridge the Santa Fe tracks and the Point Loma highway crossing in the Five Points area, and on the La Jolla segment the track would run under the coast highway on Turquoise Street.

Several thousand tons of steel rails began arriving from ‘famous Belgian mills near Liege’ in November, and in December 1923 the SDER began receiving 50 new streetcars specifically designed for the high speeds and flexible operations of the new route, with pantograph collectors and control systems that allowed the new cars to operate individually or in trains which could be coupled and uncoupled rapidly en route. By the end of February 1924 the tracks had reached Turquoise Street in Pacific Beach and a group of city officials, railroad men and business men made a preliminary round trip over the line. Reporters for the local papers who accompanied the dignitaries wrote that there were cheers from every side, hands and handkerchiefs were waved, and cameras clicked as the train rolled through, running as smoothly as a Pullman coach. Claus Spreckels, general manager of the SDER, announced that the line would be in full operation as far as Mission Beach on May 1 and on to La Jolla by July 1.

The new express line was opened as far as Ocean Beach (with a temporary shuttle to Mission Beach) on May 1, 1924 and through service to Mission Beach, Pacific Beach and La Jolla began on July 1. The planned viaduct over the Santa Fe tracks and the Point Loma highway had not yet been built so the new line at first used the Point Loma Railroad’s grade crossing to a point near the Marine base on Barnett Avenue. From there the route crossed open country on a private right-of-way that has since become Sports Arena Boulevard. At Midway Drive, the tracks continued on an elevated causeway through salt marshes along what is now West Point Loma Boulevard but was then the southern shore of Mission Bay. Beyond Famosa Slough the causeway continued directly to Ocean Beach Junction, about where West Point Loma Boulevard now meets Bacon Street. The causeway included bridges to allow circulation of water to the sloughs and wetlands to its south, and the remains of one of these bridges, over Famosa Slough, can still be seen. At Ocean Beach Junction the line split, one branch following the former Point Loma Railroad route into Ocean Beach and the other the Bay Shore Railroad route over the bridge to Mission Beach.

In Mission Beach, the line was built on an elevated strip down the middle of Mission Boulevard, separated from automobile traffic on either side by curbs. The route continued through Pacific Beach on Allison Street, which in 1924 was mostly vacant land; development of the ‘new’ Pacific Beach along the coast, due in part to the arrival of the fast electric line, had not yet begun (Allison Street was ‘opened’ and paved between Pacific Avenue, now PB Drive, and Turquoise Street in 1928, and in 1929 was renamed, becoming the northern extension of Mission Boulevard).  At Beryl Street the route curved westward from Allison onto what is now La Jolla Boulevard, where a large concrete culvert was built in Tourmaline Canyon and covered with dirt fill to provide a crossing for the tracks. Turquoise Street at the time was part of the coast highway, paved in 1920, which passed through Pacific Beach on Garnet Avenue and Cass Street and continued to La Jolla and beyond on La Jolla Boulevard. To prevent the disruption and danger of crossing this highway at grade, the SDER constructed a steel viaduct over Turquoise Street. The railway continued on what was then called Electric Avenue and is now La Jolla Hermosa Avenue, following the route of the LA & SD Beach Railway. At Via Del Norte in La Jolla the new line diverged from the old route (which had continued on Electric Avenue and Cuvier Street) onto a private right-of-way that is now the La Jolla Bike Path, and which required a number of cuts to improve the grade. From the end of the private right-of-way near La Jolla High School the line ran on Fay Street to its terminus on Prospect.

Elaborate stations in La Jolla (at Prospect Street and Fay Avenue) and La Jolla Hermosa (at Mira Monte) were finished in 1925. The station at La Jolla Hermosa, which also doubled as a power substation and was designed as a replica of the San Carlos mission at Monterey, is still standing and for many years has been the La Jolla Methodist Church. The three-level viaduct over the Santa Fe tracks and highway to Point Loma was completed early in 1925. With this structure the Santa Fe tracks remained at their original grade, an undercrossing was excavated under the tracks for the highway and a viaduct built to take the electric line over both. The excavation for the highway put the roadway below sea level, and pumps were installed to keep it clear of seepage and runoff. The viaduct, which lifted the electric railway over the tracks of the mainline railway, was 2000 feet long and included 900 feet of embankment, 940 feet of frame trestles and 160 feet of steel girders, supported by massive concrete piers. Witherby Street still passes under the railroad tracks in this same undercrossing, and the base of the concrete piers which supported the viaduct carrying the electric railway over the railroad and Witherby Street can still be seen just to the west of the railroad bridge.

The Mission Beach amusement center opened with great fanfare on May 29, 1925. The station there included a subway under the tracks and Mission Boulevard, protecting passengers from vehicle traffic. At the same time the SDER opened the second track of its double-track route through Mission Beach and, with the completion of the viaducts over the Santa Fe at Witherby Street and the coast highway at Turquoise Street, introduced a new timetable establishing the running time from San Diego to La Jolla at 36 minutes.

The new electric line actually served three routes; No. 14 to Ocean Beach, No. 15 to Mission Beach, and No. 16 to La Jolla, all of which used the same tracks between San Diego and Ocean Beach Junction. Trains which could consist of one or more cars from each of the routes left the Plaza in downtown San Diego under the control of one operator. When they reached Ocean Beach Junction the No. 14 car or cars would be uncoupled and continue on to Ocean Beach with its own operator. The other cars proceeded to Mission Beach where the No. 15 cars (if any) would be dropped off and the No. 16 continue on to La Jolla (the No. 15 route was only used for occasional holiday travel to the Mission Beach amusement park). The coupling mechanism was designed so that the cars could be detached while the train was in motion.

The new fast electric line had been designed to use catenary overhead wires and pantograph collectors instead of the trolley wire and trolley poles that were standard at the time. Catenary wires, like those currently in use on the San Diego Trolley, utilize two wires, the upper one arching between supports and the lower one suspended from the upper one and stretched tight, making it straight and level. Pantograph collectors, frameworks mounted on top of the cars that pressed up against the wire to collect electric current, were thought to be necessary for high-speed operation since trolley poles might bounce out of contact with the wire. However, the pantographs proved to be unsatisfactory; they were of light construction and sometimes collapsed, and tended to damage the overhead wires, especially at switches. They were replaced by trolley poles, which did function adequately with the catenary overhead wires and also allowed the cars to operate on other routes with standard trolley wires.

After the completion of the fast electric line, real estate promoters along its path began emphasizing its benefits to their communities. The developers of Bird Rock, for example, noted that San Diego’s fastest electric line ran through the heart of their beautiful, high, sightly property lying between the hills and the sea, putting it in the ‘path of development’. In Pacific Beach, where development had previously been centered around Lamont Street and the college campus property (then the San Diego Army and Navy Academy, now Pacific Plaza), the promoters of the ‘new’ Pacific Beach around the foot of Garnet Avenue noted that construction of the SDER’s superb fast beach carline swung the business and pleasure sections of Pacific Beach down to the ocean front where they belong, and justified a change of name to ‘San Diego Beach’. Earl Taylor, one of the developers of ‘new’ Pacific Beach, quoted a Saturday Evening Post article that said ‘Wherever electric lines lead out from the city, you find suburban property values enhanced, suburban life made comfortable, and waste land blossoming into homes. The automobile helps. The motor bus helps more. But the trolley and interurban cars are more important still’.

The SDER’s franchise allowed it to haul freight, and in 1925 the Standard Oil Company built a storage yard in the Bird Rock area to be supplied by tank cars delivered by rail. Gaps where a rail spur leading to this storage plant cut through a sidewalk on La Jolla Hermosa Avenue near Forward Street can still be seen. By 1934 the Standard Oil plant was the SDER’s only freight customer and when Standard Oil acquired a fleet of trucks for its oil deliveries SDER received permission to discontinued freight service.

Although parts of the electric railroad were double-tracked, much of it, including the private rights-of-way in La Jolla and in the Midway area, was not, and relied on block signals to prevent collisions between trains traveling in opposite directions. On November 22, 1937, the signals in the Midway area apparently failed and cars traveling to and from Ocean Beach on the single track collided head-on. Visibility had been reduced by heavy fog and the operators failed to see the other car and apply the brakes until seconds before the crash. One car penetrated eight feet into the other and 31 passengers were injured, some seriously. A downed trolley wire added to the danger until the company turned power off on the line.

Whether or not it was the electric railway that caused waste land to blossom into homes, the population in the beach areas served by the electric line did increase throughout the 1930s. Automobile ownership also continued to grow and streets became more congested. In some areas where the streetcars and automobiles shared the road, the traffic forced the high-speed line to operate at slower speeds, impacting service. Also, the growing number of motorists led to increased complaints that the tracks were obstructing vehicle traffic, particularly in Mission Beach, where the line was elevated and isolated from the paved boulevard, leaving little room to drive. Improvement of the roads had also caused the SDER to begin using buses on some routes, including one to La Jolla. The No. 14 streetcar line to Ocean Beach was replaced by buses in 1938 and in January 1940 the SDER company received permission from the city to discontinue service of the No. 16 car line between downtown and its terminus in La Jolla. The SDER was required to remove tracks, wires and overhead structures but, in consideration of the valuable rights-of-way to be conveyed to the city and its substitution of bus service in place of the electric railway service, the SDER was not required to remove its tracks from paved streets. Tracks remained imbedded in the pavement of Fay Avenue in La Jolla into the 1960s and even now potholes can reveal rusted rails beneath the surface of Mission Boulevard.

The last No. 16 train left La Jolla on September 16, 1940; according to longtime passenger and Mission Beach resident Zelma Bays Locker, the motorman on this last run rang his bell all the way into town. In Mission Beach the tracks were removed and Mission Boulevard repaved in 1941, leaving only a 4-foot median where the double-tracked electric railway had once run. According to the San Diego Union, the ‘traffic-clogged two-lane highway’ had become a ‘broad 4-lane arterial which easily is accommodating the heavy beach-area traffic flow’.

The beach-area traffic flow has only become heavier over the ensuing 75 years, and not so easily accommodated, and an electric railway between San Diego and La Jolla is once again under development. The Mid-Coast Trolley is expected to open in 2021, extending San Diego’s modern ‘light rail’ system to the University Town Center shopping mall via the University of California, San Diego campus in La Jolla. Between Old Town and UCSD the new line will follow the route of the Pacific Highway, east of Mission Bay and through Rose Canyon. The station serving Pacific Beach is to be located near Garnet Avenue and Morena Boulevard, east of the I-5 freeway and not far from the old race track site, but on the opposite side of town from where the electric Beach Line ran in the 1920s and 1930s. It will be interesting to see what effect a superb new light rail line will have on the business and pleasure centers of Pacific Beach this time around.

Mt. Soledad, which rises abruptly to the east of La Jolla and descends more gradually south to Pacific Beach, is the highest point in the city of San Diego. At 822 feet above sea level and within about a mile of the Pacific Ocean it is also said to be the highest coastal elevation in California. With an unobstructed view from horizon to horizon it has long been popular as an observation point. In 1905, the San Diego Union’s annual New Year’s Day report from La Jolla noted that Old Soledad rose majestically, keeping watch over the town nestling at its feet, and that the half-hour’s stiff climb to the old signal station at the top was amply repaid by the panorama you would find yourself the center of; San Diego, Coronado and grand old Point Loma, the broad expanse of Rose Canyon, the mountains, and the illimitable expanse of ocean, Clemente and Catalina showing clear and distinct in the distance. If you were also one of those favored mortals privileged to see one of La Jolla’s gorgeous sunsets from that vantage point, you would return a ‘better and a wiser man for what it has been granted you to look upon’ (the ‘old signal station’ was apparently the survey station established on the summit in 1899 by A. T. Mossman of the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey).

In April 1908 the Union recommended the summit of Mt. Soledad as a rare natural observatory from which to get a first glimpse of the Great White Fleet, the armada of U. S. battleships that was making its first United States port call at San Diego after sailing around Cape Horn on a round-the-world voyage. The fleet’s arrival on April 13 drew the largest crowds ever seen in San Diego at the time, but La Jolla residents and visitors who did not wish to go to San Diego could view the coming of the fleet from the mountain top. Other sights were also best seen from the mountain; in April 1910 the Union reported that a comet party made its adventurous way up Mt. Soledad to gain in the clear upper air an unobstructed view of the celestial wanderer (Halley’s comet).

To make the way up Mt. Soledad a little less adventurous, in 1913 A. H. Frost, president of the San Diego Beach Company, which owned much of Pacific Beach, and Clark Bailey, a La Jolla capitalist, built a four-mile-long road from the foothills above Pacific Beach to the summit of Mt. Soledad. The Evening Tribune reported that the route started near the Pacific Beach reservoir and by an easy grade followed the contour of the hills, providing a splendid view of mountains, sea and islands. The road was improved and realigned in 1916 to connect it to the end of Lamont Street in Pacific Beach and its completion was celebrated in April of that year when 60 members of the San Diego Floral Association guided by Kate Sessions drove to the top in twelve automobiles and planted five Torrey Pines and three Mount Diablo big cone pines, grown from seed and donated by Miss Sessions. The ‘flower lovers’ declared that the view was well worth the trip to the top.

Mt. Soledad lies within the pueblo lands of San Diego and in June 1916 La Jolla residents petitioned the city council to set aside the south 120 acres of Pueblo Lot 1265, described as the summit of Mt. Soledad, for a public park (actually, the highest point in Pueblo Lot 1265 is 811 feet; the 822-foot summit of Mt. Soledad is about half a mile west, within Pueblo Lot 1264). The council voted unanimously to approve the petition and the south 120 acres of Pueblo Lot 1265, ‘commanding a view of the ocean, mountains and of the entire city’, became a city park in July 1916.

In 1926 the chambers of commerce of La Jolla, Mission Beach and ‘San Diego Beach’ (the would-be name for a hoped-for redevelopment of Pacific Beach) formed the North Shores Civic League to promote their communities. The League noted that a neglected feature of the North Shores area was the wonderful scenic panorama that could be observed from Mt. Soledad and they recommended that the ‘fair trail’ from Pacific Beach to the summit should be developed into an auto road. According to the San Diego Union, citizens of La Jolla and Pacific Beach assembled with shovels and rakes and aided by scrapers furnished by the city performed wonders in turning the trail into a serviceable dirt road by which autos could reach the summit in high gear. The completion of this ‘new road from the south’ was the occasion for a celebration at the summit in which Dr. H. K. W. Kumm, ‘traveler, writer and lecturer’ (and Pacific Beach resident), declared that while such sights as the Grand Canyon and Victoria Falls might be more awe-inspiring, they could hardly be considered more beautiful than the view from Mt. Soledad (although the San Diego Union admitted that the day was a trifle hazy and the usual clear view of the mountains was obscured). Kate Sessions planted three more pine trees and cadets from the Army and Navy Academy in Pacific Beach were in charge of a military ceremony and flag raising.

For more than 80 years now the top of Mt. Soledad has been marked by a large cross, standing over 30 feet tall. There are reports that a redwood cross was dragged up the mountain with a good deal of labor and patience and that worshipers held Easter services beneath it in 1913, but if so it was probably not at the same location as the current cross. The San Diego Union announced in 1914 that the churches of La Jolla would hold a joint sunrise Easter service at the reservoir, presumably meaning what is now the Exchange Place reservoir in La Jolla, and in the early 1920s the churches again joined to conduct Easter sunrise services near the clubhouse of the La Jolla golf course. The redwood cross was reportedly stolen in 1922, but if this cross ever existed it was probably located at one of these sites on the lower slopes of Mt. Soledad.

By 1925 the Union reported that Easter sunrise services had become an annual institution in La Jolla and attracted increasingly large crowds each year. In 1929 plans were announced for the sunrise service to be held by the pastors of North Shore protestant churches at a ‘scenic point on Soledad Mountain’. According to the Tribune, the Pacific Beach chamber of commerce had cleared the ground on Mt. Soledad and would clear the road up the mountain from Pacific Beach. The PB Boy Scout troop had agreed to take a hiking trip from the head of Lamont Street to the scenic point a few days before Easter and throw any stray rocks and pebbles out of the road. Representatives from La Jolla were also expected to clear two other routes from La Jolla, opening up three avenues of traffic to help avoid congestion. A special committee was appointed to supervise the erection of a cross and platform. The ‘scenic point’ was apparently the city park on Mt. Soledad, which was to become the site of annual Easter sunrise services in the coming decades.

One thousand residents of the North Shore district attended the first Easter sunrise service at the park on Mt. Soledad in 1929 and the Evening Tribune reported that a two-mile chain of torches along the highways leading up to the mountain had been arranged in the form of a gigantic cross. An Easter sunrise service was also held on Mt. Soledad in 1930, attended by 500, but the custom then apparently lapsed until being revived in 1934 under the auspices of the Pacific Beach chamber of commerce. In March 1934, just a few days before Easter, the city built a ‘frame stucco cross’ in the city park and on Easter morning hundreds of residents gathered before the cross as Army and Navy Academy buglers heralded the beginning of the service.

Easter sunrise services at the cross on Mt. Soledad became an annual event but just before Easter in March 1952 the San Diego Union reported that the weather-scarred old cross, pitted with BB shot launched at it by mischievous youngsters and buffeted through the years by the elements, had been toppled by wind and shattered beyond reasonable repair. The Union noted that city employees had patched, stuccoed and strung framework over chicken-wire fabric to construct the 30-foot cross and that throughout its existence it had withstood all influences except one: an act of God.

Plans to replace the stucco cross began immediately and contributions were accepted at the 1952 Easter sunrise service. In May 1952 the Mt. Soledad Memorial Committee announced that plans were nearly completed for a ‘lasting cross’ atop ‘historic Mt. Soledad’. The proposal included a new cross of reinforced concrete as well as a paved assembly area large enough for several thousand persons, a parking area for 800 or more automobiles and about 2000 feet of new highway.

In 1953 the 32nd annual Easter sunrise service was held at the site of the old cross. A temporary cross was erected and an offering taken to go towards rebuilding the cross. By September the Memorial Committee had obtained sufficient funds for building and maintenance of the cross and grounds, and announced that construction would begin as soon as city approval was gained. Actual construction involved pouring twenty tons of concrete into forms laid out on the ground and allowing it to cure for 60 days. However, when a pair of cranes attempted to raise the cross into position in February 1954 its weight produced ‘certain stresses that it wouldn’t take’ and it cracked in two places just below the horizontal section of the cross. Contractors, engineers and architects studied the problem and decided they could remove and recast the cracked section and still have the cross in place before Easter. In fact, the cross was repaired and raised in time to be dedicated on Easter Sunday, 1954. The paved assembly area and parking lot for thousands of people originally proposed by the Memorial Committee was never built.

The cross built within the city park on Mt. Soledad in 1934 and rebuilt in 1954 was specifically intended for Easter sunrise services, and for years maps identified the site as the Mt. Soledad Easter Cross. However, in the 1980s, the presence of a prominent religious symbol on public property in apparent violation of the constitution led to lawsuits, and at one point a court ordered the cross to be removed. Instead, the constitutional issue was resolved by returning the land under the cross to private ownership.  The Easter cross became the Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial Cross, a tribute to armed forces servicemen and women, and in 2006 the property was taken over by the U. S.  Department of Defense. After an act of congress in 2014 allowed it to be transferred to private ownership it was sold to the Mount Soledad Memorial Association in 2015. In September 2016 the courts ruled that since the cross no longer stood on public property the case for its removal was moot.

The legal battles may now be over, the cross on Mt. Soledad is still standing, and the panorama a visitor may find themselves the center of amply repays the few minutes it now takes to drive to it.

Pacific Beach experienced a period of growth in the mid-1920s, including a new business district at the corner of Garnet Avenue and Cass Street, Crystal Pier and the opening of new subdivisions like Pacific Pines, North Shore Highlands and Crown Point. However, this growth soon stalled and was followed by a period of stagnation that lasted through most of the 1930s. While the Great Depression which followed the stock market crash of October 1929 undoubtedly played a role, many blamed this slowdown on the Mattoon Act.

The Mattoon Act, or Acquisition and Improvement Act, was passed by the California legislature in 1925. Named for its author, Everett Mattoon, it was intended to facilitate community development by allowing local authorities to create improvement districts where property owners would be assessed to pay for construction projects which benefited the district. The authorities would also have the right to acquire property for an improvement project through condemnation, if necessary.

Promoters of an improvement project would petition the local government authority to approve a project and an assessment district created to pay for it. While approval of a project did not require a vote of property owners in the district, a signed protest by 51 percent of the owners would be required to stop it. Once a project was approved and a district established the project would be funded by bonds to be repaid by an ad valorem tax on property owners within the district. A collective lien was placed on all property in the district, remaining in effect until the assessment for the entire district had been paid in full. Any delinquent payments were to be added, or ‘pyramided’, onto the district’s assessment for the next year, in effect requiring owners who did pay their taxes to pay their neighbors’ delinquent taxes as well.

The impact of the Mattoon Act on Pacific Beach was primarily the result of one project, the Mission Bay Causeway, a roadway built across what had been mud flats and open water between West Point Loma Boulevard and Crown Point. In April 1927 a petition was filed with the San Diego City Council asking for construction of a causeway under the provisions of the Mattoon Act. The San Diego Union reported that the project would be of immense proportions, costing thousands of dollars, and would mean the creation of an extensive assessment district north of the bay and on the Old Town flats, with the issuance of 6 percent bonds. A month later, in May 1927 the council voted unanimously to begin proceedings which could result in the construction project, estimated to cost about $500,000.

The causeway project was not without opposition, however. Attorney H. C. Gardiner, representing 150 Pacific Beach residents, protested that it was an unwarranted and unnecessary burden and threatened to fight it in court. After the council adopted a resolution of intention in August 1928, and set a date a month later to hear protests, Gardiner outlined his objections in a letter to the Union, complaining about the cost of the project, its potential to spoil Mission Bay, and the Mattoon Act itself, recently condemned by the Real Estate Association of San Diego and already in ill repute due to its ‘vicious provisions’ and ‘objectionable features’. In their September meeting, the council overruled these protests and formally authorized the project.

In November 1928 the council voted four to one in favor of issuing bonds and acquiring rights-of-way for the causeway project, again sweeping aside protests. In December, opponents of the project, led by Gardiner, filed another protest with the city council, claiming that the Mattoon Act was purely a street improvement measure and conferred no authority for the construction of bridges, which was the greater part of the Mission Bay Causeway project. When construction actually began, later in December 1928, Gardiner filed suit, and in January 1929 a judge granted a temporary injunction, halting the work.

In what was called one of the most bitterly fought court cases in recent years (attorneys were said to be like ‘gladiators sparring for position’) the project was nearly struck down in April 1929 when the judge ruled against 36 separate objections to the project but upheld one, that the proposed right-of-way crossed a small section of federal property and that the permit to cross this land was revocable by the Secretary of War and therefore did not represent a permanent dedication to the public (the property in question had been acquired by the federal government in 1878 to build a levee to divert the waters of the San Diego River into Mission Bay). Judge Griffin was prepared to make the temporary injunction against the causeway project permanent, but before his final ruling the attorney representing the promoters of the project made a ‘spectacular dash’ across the continent by air mail plane to Washington, D.C., returning with a permanent easement for a right-of-way for highway purposes signed by the Secretary of War. The judge reopened the case and reversed his former decision, although he did permit the injunction to stand pending appeal, provided the plaintiffs posted a $50,000 bond. The protesters were unable to raise the bond, Judge Griffin lifted the injunction, and construction work was resumed in July 1929.

With the Mission Bay Causeway finally under construction, some prominent Pacific Beach residents expressed positive opinions about the project. J. M. Asher Jr., who lived in his recently completed mansion at the top of Loring Street hill, was quoted as saying that his interests in Pacific Beach led him to be enthusiastic about the causeway; ‘I am convinced that land owners here will find it a great factor in the rise of property values’. An ad in the Evening Tribune in February 1930 noted that San Diego residents could already drive from Barnett Avenue to the south end of the causeway and if they did they would grasp the significance of the statement that the new causeway would effect such a transformation in Pacific Beach as it has never known. A transformation not only in the lives of its people but also in Pacific Beach real estate values. ‘But you should invest here now! Later may be too late for maximum profit’.

The new causeway did effect a transformation in Pacific Beach, in the lives of its people and in real estate values, but not in the way that its promoters had hoped. By 1930 the negative effects of the Mattoon Act were already being felt in districts around the city and county. The assessments added to property taxes to repay improvement bonds both increased the cost of ownership and reduced the value of the property, and increasing numbers of owners were either unable or unwilling to make their payments. The pyramiding provision of the Mattoon Act meant that these delinquent payments could be added to future assessments, which even more owners would fail to pay, creating a potential death spiral of rising assessments and more delinquencies.

In January 1930 a joint meeting of city councilmen and county supervisors pledged all possible relief for owners of property in Mattoon Act assessment districts. It was the ‘sense of the meeting’ that there should be no further pyramiding of assessments and that each landowner should be required to pay only his share of the cost of the improvement for which the district was formed. If bondholders did not agree they should take their case to the state courts, where the local officials believed they would find no legal basis for pyramiding. In August the supervisors established a revolving fund of about $60,000 to eliminate the year’s delinquencies on bond payments and also canceled penalties on delinquencies. According to the Evening Tribune, these measures created a ‘better feeling’ about tax bills in local Mattoon districts.

Construction of the Mission Bay Causeway was completed and a grand opening was held in January 1931. Four cadets from the San Diego Army and Navy Academy in Pacific Beach officially cut the ribbon at the south end of the roadway at Rosecrans Street. The Tribune noted that the large crowd was sprinkled by residents of Pacific Beach, Crown Point and owners of adjoining property who would pay the bills. The opening of the causeway was also accompanied by renewed advertising for Crown Point and other subdivisions in Pacific Beach.

However, delinquencies within Mattoon Act districts, including the Causeway district, continued to increase, exacerbated by the general economic collapse of the Great Depression. In February 1931 the county assessor reduced tax valuation of property in Mattoon districts by approximately 50 percent. Although he said the reduction was effected to bring relief to overburdened property owners, he noted that it was also justified by the present sales value, or lack of it, in the territory bearing heavy improvement assessments. The large, and growing, tax burden on property in these districts undermined its value, in some cases making it unsaleable.

Relief for overburdened property owners and increased delinquencies also meant that improvement districts did not raise enough revenue to make scheduled payments to bondholders. In August 1933 holders of Causeway bonds, led by the American Securities Company, won a state supreme court ruling that would have forced the city to levy a special tax to make up $31,000 in delinquent interest payments. In April 1934 the court also ruled in favor of the securities company’s demand that the city pyramid all amounts delinquent to date in the next year’s assessment. James Abbey, deputy district attorney in charge of Mattoon litigation, objected, predicting that pyramiding would result in immediate and total collapse of Mattoon Act districts, that taxpayers would no doubt refuse to pay any further assessments when they saw their tax bills, and that the situation should bring the bondholders of Mattoon Act districts to the realization that there is very little prospect for immediate payment of their bonds. Supervisor S. P. McMullen actually advocated a tax strike by property owners; ‘It’s getting better all the time for the property owners’, he said. ‘The more penalties accrue, the quicker the owners will realize how impossible it is to carry their burden, and they will quit paying taxes at all and thus force the bondholders to terms’. Rather than comply with the state supreme court ruling, the city appealed to the United States Supreme Court in July 1934 to halt pyramiding in the Mission Bay Causeway district on the grounds that pyramiding would amount to illegal taking of property without due cause, but in January 1935 the United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Mattoon Act in the Causeway district, denying the city’s appeal.

The June 7, 1935, San Diego Union ran to 134 pages; 28 pages of news and advertising and over 100 pages dedicated to a delinquent tax list, eight columns to a page, listing the owners, descriptions and amount of taxes delinquent for property in the county. In some of the newer subdivisions in the Pacific Beach area like North Shore Highlands, Congress Heights, Pacific Pines and Crown Point, nearly every lot in the tract appeared to be listed. Some prominent citizens were included on the list, like Kate Sessions, who owed $152.92 on property in her Soledad Terrace subdivision and $66.86 on her nursery in the Homeland Villas No. 2 tract as well as additional taxes on other properties around the city. J. M. Asher Jr. owed $91.34 on the property in Acre Lot 11, where he had built his house at the top of Loring Street hill. The San Diego Army and Navy Academy, located on 31 acres in the heart of Pacific Beach that is now the Pacific Plaza shopping center, and with improvements that included recently completed 4-story dormitory buildings, was delinquent by over $8000. For the academy, this failure to pay property taxes was a fatal blow. Overextended by the dormitory building program, founder Thomas Davis had been forced to mortgage the property, buildings and furnishings, down to the silverware in the mess hall, to Security Trust & Savings Bank of San Diego. One of the conditions of the resulting deed of trust was that the academy would be responsible for property taxes, and when Davis failed to pay the delinquent taxes the trust company declared default in 1936. The campus was sold to the John E. Brown College Corporation in 1937 and was known thereafter as Brown Military Academy.

Although the U. S. Supreme Court had denied their last legal defense against pyramiding delinquent Mattoon assessments, it was obvious to local officials that pyramiding was not a viable option. According to deputy district attorney Abbey the situation had ‘just gone plain crazy’; the law seemed to give no alternative but to pyramid but under pyramiding many a lot would be called upon to pay a district assessment at least five times as great as its assessed valuation. The Causeway district was already 54 percent delinquent and if the assessments were pyramided, they would become 100 percent delinquent, like many districts already were. The county assessor added to the alarm, saying that the 100-page delinquent tax list spoke for itself; out of 155,000 real estate accounts the previous year approximately 80,000 were delinquent. Also 16,000 had been removed from the tax rolls for being delinquent over five years, reducing the tax rolls to 139,000. The supreme court order would add $3,500,000 special taxes to pay in addition to the regular levy, and the possibility of payment of such a huge sum was ‘far beyond the realm of possibility’. All such districts would without doubt go 100 percent delinquent and another 20,000 accounts would go off the rolls.

Instead of pyramiding more taxes on property owners in assessment districts, most of whom could not or would not pay them, the county proposed a $2,600,000 bond issue which would be used to buy up the existing Mattoon Act bonds at deep discounts. About half of this county bond would then be repaid by property owners in the districts, but with reasonable assessments so that the owners would resume paying their taxes. The other half would be repaid from general property taxes and gasoline taxes, reflecting the fact that much of the improvement work had involved the construction of arterial roads that actually benefit the entire region, not just the district in which they are located.

Abbey had prepared legislation enabling the Mattoon settlement plan which was introduced by the San Diego county delegation and enacted during the 1935 session of the state legislature. The settlement plan was put to a vote in San Diego County on October 29, 1935, and passed by a margin of 3 to 1. The San Diego Union celebrated it as not only a relief measure for assessment-burdened property, allowing it to be returned to general taxation and affording owners a practical method of repaying their obligations and clearing their titles, but also as a ‘Go’ signal, clearing away the wreckage from an era of reckless and unscrupulous promotion and promising renewed initiative and foresight to back projects for future progress.

The state supreme court upheld the Mattoon settlement legislation in July 1936 and in March 1937 Abbey went to San Francisco to negotiate with representatives of a large block of Causeway district bonds, which the county was to buy and retire at 50 percent of their face value. According to the San Diego Union, the district was 65 percent delinquent in city and county taxes because of the Mattoon blight. It had approximately 1500 taxpayers and included lands from the Marine base to La Jolla. In June 1937 the Union announced that settlement of the Causeway Mattoon district was voted unanimously by the county board of supervisors. $730,000 of the $743,000 bonds were in the county treasurer’s office and money was available to pay for them at the county’s price.

The Causeway district had the largest area of any Mattoon district in the county, with 56 percent or over half of the assessed valuation of such districts, and a Union editorial noted that clearing up 56 percent of the Mattoon blight meant that the hardest half of an extremely difficult task was almost finished. A solution to the Mattoon problem, a disastrous community blunder, would lift an immense worry from the literally thousands of local residents involved in the maze of legal complications created by promoters, salesmen and contractors who exploited the Mattoon Act as an easy means of making a quick cleanup in San Diego. The settlement would free the community to begin again where it left off nearly 10 years before when a small minority of individuals deluded the rest of the community with reckless promise of sudden and unearned speculative profit.

Title insurance companies agreed to issue title insurance policies in the Causeway Mattoon district without mention of the fact that the properties had been in such a district. The policies would include a note saying that San Diego County had forever waived the right to levy future Mattoon assessments on land in the district. An ad in the Union by the Southern Title and Trust Company announced that the company would insure titles in the entire Causeway district showing the property to be clear of Mattoon bonds as long as there were no delinquent assessments.

On the Fourth of July, 1937, Pacific Beach celebrated the Causeway district’s ‘declaration of independence’ from Mattoon Act ‘bond-age’ with fireworks and a huge ‘bond-fire’ at the beach, symbolizing burning of the last Mattoon bonds. City and county officials and citizens who had labored long to release the district from the heavy Mattoon yoke joined in the festivities (James Abbey had the privilege of throwing the first bundle of bonds on the fire), and predicted an era of progress and prosperity. The president of the Pacific Beach Chamber of Commerce declared that nothing could stop Pacific Beach now; ‘Our unfortunate experience with Mattoon bonds set back our development, but only temporarily. From now on watch us grow’.