Summer of 1911: SDG&E Brings Gas, and Residents Have the Same

The San Diego Union reported nearly weekly news items coming from La Mesa Springs in the summer of 1911.  Many focused on the many new residents, houses, businesses, buildings and expanding infrastructure of the town. 

On June 1, the La Mesa Improvement Club (precursors to the original La Mesa Chamber of Commerce) held a “Newcomers Event” at the La Mesa Opera House.  The La Mesa Band played familiar tunes, “old fashioned games” were held for the children and an opportunity made for all to greet and welcome the “newbies” to town.

Such was the community’s growth that in the June 4, 1911, edition of the Union postmaster E.J. Palmateer reported the filling of 48 new post boxes in the recently rented new building on Lookout Avenue. 

The Park-Grable Co., the largest of the local real estate companies in La Mesa Springs, would feature ad/articles reporting on the latest in lot sales and homes built or occupied throughout the community. 

During June and July, the Union reported on the many new homes being completed for such early town leaders, businessmen and promoters as H.C. Park, S.R. Canon, E.A.D. Reynolds, D.L. Bissell, T.J. McKee, L. Sperbeck, M.L. Knutson, J. P. Draper, O.W. Todd and James Morrison.  Morrison’s house on Lemon Avenue near Grant Street cost an impressive $4,000!

All of these Springs’ pioneers were members of the La Mesa Improvement Club and key figures in the following year’s city incorporation.

Other improvement news included stories such as the residents of Third Avenue planting Acacia trees in front of their new houses and empty lots. 

Such was the growth that San Diego Gas and Electric Co. put in a third power line, and in June offered to extend gas service to La Mesa Springs. 

SDG&E promised to extend the service from East San Diego if, as they had done the previous September for initial electrical power, La Mesa Springs could get 150 subscribers for the new gas service.  On Aug. 2, SDG&E confirmed that La Mesa Springs’ citizens had met the requirements and in the autumn began work to extend gas lines into town.

Modern Transportation Infrastructure for 1911

In June 1911, the Hull Feed Store erected a new “cement-block” building behind its Lookout Avenue shop to store gasoline and oil. 

The old Feed Store had just become the first Standard Oil Co. representative in town and was adding petroleum products to its services to meet the demand of the growing number of automobiles traveling through town.

This proliferation of automobiles was due not just to Henry Ford’s assembly lines but also to the work to improve the local roads.  In 1909, county residents had passed the first County Road Bond Act.

On June 8, the county established one of its road work camps at the old Manning Ranch (just east of the 125 and 8 interchange today) to improve the road through the recently renamed Grossmont Pass.  The crew used their horse teams with “Fresno graders” to cut the first auto grade through the pass.

Other local road news of summer 1911 included crews working to straighten and gravel pave the “El Cajon” boulevard east of the Spring’s townsite (now the east end of La Mesa Boulevard out to the 125) and the opening of the Santee to Mission Valley road through the mission gorge—the original Mission Gorge Road.

Summer Fun 1911 Style

Of course, the summer of 1911 was not all work—La Mesans got in some play as well.

The beach was a great attraction for escaping the summer heat.  On May 31, the La Mesa Women’s Club sponsored a special trip for its members to open the summer.  The ladies caught a special train from the La Mesa Springs depot to downtown before transferring to an express streetcar to Ocean Beach. 

After enjoying the coolness of the ocean and “special picnic” basket lunches, they retraced their steps home.

On Aug. 10, the Union reported on a group of La Mesa Springs neighbors who had established a self-proclaimed “Camp La Mesa” on the banks of the Sweetwater River in the Jamacha Valley.  These neighbors stayed there for two weeks to enjoy the cool riparian landscape—living out of their automobiles—early “car campers” it appears. 

Upon their return on Aug. 30, the “campers” held a special housewarming party at the newly completed home of camp attendees Mr. and Mrs. Russell.  The party included festivities and games directed by Miss Joy, including a role-swapping contest in which the male partygoers were required to test their skills at sewing, darning and embroidery. Wild times indeed!

Good Clean Fun on Clean Up Day

Citywide entertainment was centered upon the town’s fourth annual Fourth of July Celebration.  Just as had occurred during the previous years, the La Mesa Improvement Club sponsored not only the event, but also the town’s “Clean Up Day” the week prior.

Clean Up Day brought out a reported 200 to 300 La Mesans armed with hoes, rakes, and shovels for the afternoon-long project.  Improvement Club board member H.C. Oliver served as crew “captain” in leading the clean up of the streets and empty lots. 

Mrs. Helen Stoddard, Women’s Club vice president, led the ladies in passing out lemonade to the hard-working men and boys.

Mrs. Stoddard then passed out awards including a “gilded shovel” to Mr. M.M. Robinson for earning the most blisters, the tongue-in-cheek “booby prize” to Rev. H.A. McKinney for most lemonade drank, and Fourth of July committee chairman D. L. Bissell, bank president and Improvement Club officer Sherman Grable, and local attorney Lester Welch all receiving miniature brooms, dustpans and hoes for their efforts.

A week later, a crowd of somewhere near 2,000, including more than 500 La Mesa Springs residents, attended the Fourth of July festivities. 

The sommittee set up a flower-covered arch over Lookout Avenue with the dates “1776 and 1911” embossed. 

In order to provide shade for spectators, the committee erected awnings covering both sides of Lookout Avenue from Spring to Palm.  These amenities provided comfortable accommodations for viewing the parade and a series of athletic events and competitions for boys, girls, and open divisions.  Visiting sailors from the USS Colorado dominated the open division foot races and field events.

Volunteer Firefighter Heroes

The hot time La Mesa Springs provided on the Fourth of July was good practice for dealing with a fire that broke out in the office of the La Mesa Hotel on July 12.  The two-story La Mesa Hotel (originally built as the Dorothy Hotel in 1907) dominated the northwest corner of Lookout and Palm avenues.

Owner C.J. Plante was not in town when the conflagration started.  Luckily young Homer Hurlburt, one of the town’s new Boy Scouts, saw the smoke and sounded the alarm.  Within just a few minutes the volunteer fire company had pulled their equipment from the brand new "fire shed" and arrived with hose reel and chemical apparatus.

Their quick response and implementation of their volunteer fire training helped confine the fire to just the first story hotel office—and initial fears of the entire block of wooden buildings being lost were dowsed.  Town leader Sherman Grable, of the Park-Grable Real estate company, and merchant Billy Kross were credited with skillful operation of the chemical cart.

Investing in Parks, Schools—and Children

In addition to protecting the growing infrastructure of the town—civic leaders also looked to invest in improvements with long-term benefits.

Parks were something that these early leaders were very interested.   In the June 19 Union Mt. Nebo resident E.A.D. Reynolds was reported as funding and building a gazebo and plantings for the small park in the Lookout Park tract (later known as Prospect Park). 

Of note to future park users, in early June, Ed Fletcher and James Murray’s Cuyamaca Water Co. started construction on a new dam to the north of the old Parke Ranch pond (at today’s Anthony’s Seafood Restaurant) that would become known as Murray Hill Reservoir.  Decades later this reservoir would later be enclosed and is now Harry Griffen Park.

Other park improvements included the Collier Park Association’s purchase of a new electric pump for that park’s well, the building of a small bandstand just north of the La Mesa Depot along Railroad Avenue (now Nebo) for evening and weekend concerts, and the concerted effort to build a “children’s playground.” 

Improvement Club committee chair E.B. Light led the search for a centrally located property where the town could erect swings, slides, rings, sand beds, trapeze, horizontal and parallel bars and a teeter-totter to meet the preferred needs of the growing number of youngsters.

Such was the growth of the kid population that the Allison School Board was desperately seeking solutions to remedy the overcrowded 1895 schoolhouse. 

Although the Board had added a new classroom to double the school’s size just a year earlier, the one-school district was expecting well over 100 grammar school students in the fall—more than the facilities and the well-respected Principal Elizabeth Jones and her two teachers could properly handle.

In response, the school district bought up five adjacent lots surrounding the original school lot at Orange and Date to acquire the full block north to Allison and west to Lookout Avenue.  The new property was to be used for the construction of a new modern grammar school (it would eventually open in 1914).  

In the meantime the district secured the first floor of E.A.D. Reynolds under construction business building, on the northwest corner of Lookout and Date, for the coming year. Reynolds agreed to speed construction in time for school’s reopening in September.

Agricultural Education Pays

Although La Mesa Springs’ urbanization was under way, the agricultural component of the community was still dominant. 

On Aug. 2 local farmer George Hawley, whose large strawberry fields to the east of town (from today’s Drew Ford dealership out to Grossmont) made him the largest and most successful agriculturalist in town, sponsored a “Farmer’s Institute” at the La Mesa Opera House.  The program featured lectures and presentations on the growth and profitability of citrus, strawberries, practical water use and good fertilizers.

Alex Gilden, owner of a new house on Third Street, must have been paying attention.  Three weeks later the Union reported that Gilden had grown a 110 lb. pumpkin on the lot behind his house.

Progressive Religious Institutions

If Gilden had required divine intervention for his produce, he would have had several options in the town of roughly 700 residents.  

On July 13, members of the Central Congregational Church invited the Congregational community throughout San Diego to dedicate their new Emmor Brooke Weaver-designed church on Third (this is the current rectory building).

Here in June, led by local attorney Welch, La Mesa Springs formed its first Boy Scout troops and held meetings in the basement hall.

In early August La Mesa’s oldest church, the Methodist Church, announced the retirement of its original $1,000 mortgage on their first dedicated church building built in 1908 on the southeast corner of Lemon and Palm (across the street from their current 1922 building).

In addition, a local group of Seventh-Day Adventists announced on June 20 that they would erect a new church on the southwest corner of Fresno and Upland. 

On Aug. 16, the Union reported rumors of a Catholic church forming, and noted the recently formed Baptist Church, which was using space in the newly completed Wolf Building at Third and Lookout for regular services, provided the “progressive community” ample options for religious instruction and support.

Support such as in weddings. 

This summer would see a short but prolific announcement for La Mesans in the Aug. 10 Union with the reporting of the marriage of Dr. J.A. Parks and Miss Rose Miller McClellan.   The announcement noted that the newlyweds would reside in La Mesa.  Here the doctor had established a growing medical practice—but little would they know the important roles these civic-minded individuals would play in La Mesa over the next 40-plus years.

Deathly Business

Of course, not all the stories of the summer of 1911 had happy endings.  La Mesa’s reputation as a place to come to regain one’s health attracted those in sometimes-desperate conditions.  

Stories of the loss of those seeking to take advantage of the arid climate to recover from dire respiratory ailments were too common.  Therefore the deaths of new residents such as Mr. William Bieler, age 40, a native of New York, who passed on from consumption in June and Mrs. Anna Webster, age 63, a native of New Mexico and victim of asthma in August could be found among the reports of progress and growth.

Stokes Undertakings and the Wolf Building

One bit of solace for those in La Mesa who lost loved ones that summer was the opening of Edward Stokes’ mortuary in the new Wolf Building. Stokes occupied the east half of the building upon its completion June 2. 

Stokes was the first undertaker to reside in La Mesa and his mortuary chapel allowed locals to honor their lost friends and loved ones near home.  Mrs. Webster’s funeral was held there, for example, presided over by Congregational Rev. Charles Hill.

Martin Wolf’s new concrete block building at the north end of the intersection of Third and Lookout (now housing the Mostly Mission and Aubrey Rose stores) was just one of the San Diego resident’s real estate investments.

Stokes was the first tenant of the new building although the local Baptist Church used the west end of the building for its regular Sunday services until they moved over to Stokes’ chapel in early August.

That was because on Aug. 12 a new, and very unique tenant would move into the western half of the building.  This company would complete what at the time were “high-tech” improvements, and build additional facilities on the empty lot to the west of the building.

This company’s arrival would make La Mesa Springs a pioneer in a new, cutting edge industry for California in 1911—motion pictures.

But that is a story for next time.