1874 San Diego City Directory
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PREFATORY.
The City of San Diego, California, is situated in the county of San Diego, in latitude 32 [degrees] 41' North, and within fifteen miles of Mexican territory. Its magnificent Bay was discovered by Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, September 28, 1542, and was by him named San Miguel. By act of Congress this favored location has been so far appreciated as to be proclaimed the terminus of the Texas and Pacific Railway in California.
Less than seven years ago the tract of land now occupied by about one thousand buildings, and known as San Diego, was covered with a heavy growth of cactus and bushes, where thousands of hare and quail enjoyed almost peaceful possession. The place is beautifully located east of the Bay. Nature in her most accommodating mood seems to have formed a site expressly for an attractive city, to extend for miles along the water's edge, as the land slopes gently to the shore of the Bay. From nearly every part a most charming view is presented of the placid harbor - the light-house promontory - the sparkling surf of the gently-waving waters of the Pacific - the distant Coronado islands - and the far-off mountains of our own and of a foreign land. Four miles northward stands the original and ancient-appearing "Old San Diego." It was settled by the religious order of Franciscan Fathers in the year 1769, and has not yet wholly emerged from its clay walls and crumbling ruins into the light and life of American civilization.
The San Diego of future renown did not originate in the idea of a missionary station, but in that of a railway station and terminus. Mr. A. E. HORTON is its founder, as he was in 1867 the purchaser of about eight hundred acres of the city's most eligible lands adjacent to the water-front. Every impulse of his most sanguine nature, and every golden accumulation of his successful investment, have thus far been devoted with a lavish hand to the advancement of the new place. The enthusiasm, the enterprise, and the unwavering faith of this gentleman in the coming greatness of San Diego, have added largely to its growth. When a hall, a wharf, a hotel, or other public improvement was demanded, his purse responded. His example became contagious in a good degree, and the unexcelled natural city site rapidly developed in improvement and beauty under the irrepressible enterprise of himself ard his co-laborers. The attractive young city,
