Articles by Richard Crawford

In the 1890s, San Diegans believed the finest theater west of Chicago could be found in the opulent Fisher Opera House on Fourth Street. Glittering productions drew sellout crowds to the 1,400-seat Romanesque style building. But not everyone was permitted to enjoy the local theater. In 1897, the popular playhouse was the scene of an ugly incident of racial prejudice.

The story of “Anderson v. Fisher,” a Case of Discrimination.

Chargers Quarterback Jack Kemp

The Chargers got off the longest quick kick in Civic Center history yesterday, booting themselves right out of apathetic Los Angeles and into eager, enthusiastic San Diego. –Jerry Magee, San Diego Union, January 25, 1961.

It’s been fifty years!  The Chargers Come to San Diego.

The cells at Police Headquarters at the foot of Market St. Courtesy San Diego Police Museum.

It was terrible. The screams of the dying and injured were ghastly. The heat was terrific. Flames leaped 20 feet high through the ventilators. –Battalion Chief Ed McLarney, San Diego Fire Department.

On February 4, 1942, an accident in the “drunk tank” of the City jail led to tragedy. The story of the Jail Fire of 1942.

A shocking mystery grabbed the attention of newspaper readers on Tuesday morning, January 16, 1923. “A Young Woman’s Body Found on Beach,” the San Diego Union headlined. “BODY OF PRETTY YOUNG WOMAN CAST UP ON THE WAVES” was the San Diego Sun’s lurid story.

A family picnicking on the beach at Torrey Pines had stumbled across a body . . . Had this been an accident? Was it possibly suicide, or even murder?

The story of the Death of the Dancer.

The public library will be open to the public evenings and Sundays, even if it requires the use of an axe, a la Carrie Nation style. –City Councilmen Percy Benbough, Jan. 20, 1917.

In 1917, San Diego librarians and the public waged war with the City Council over the library hours. Who would back down? The Library Mutiny.

San Diego's Carnegie Library at 8th and E Streets.

San Diego Union, May 28, 1881

In San Diego of the mid-1800s, successful townspeople were individuals with ambition, community spirit, and valued frontier skills. Few pioneers typified these traits better than Edward W. Nottage, a man little remembered today but well-known to San Diegans of his day as “Cast Iron Nottage.”

The story of a well-loved San Diego pioneer Cast Iron Nottage.

When the Brooklyn bridge was built it was pronounced the “eighth wonder of the world,” and now California has another “wonder” to add to the list. This wonder is the biggest dam in America, and so far as I have been able to learn from mining and civil engineers, it is the largest in the world. –Harper’s Weekly, January 8, 1898.

The wonder dam that quickly became a dam fiasco: Building Morena Dam.

Setting rock in position at Morena, 1897.

C. Leon de Aryan

Shivering like a nudist in a rumble seat and leaving a trail of bayfront water behind him, C. Leon De Aryan, editor of The Broom, appeared at the police station today charging that five longshoremen had thrown him into the bay off the Municipal pier. –San Diego Sun, Nov. 24, 1936

Public hostility rarely bothered C. Leon de Aryan. The owner and publisher of the San Diego newspaper called The Broom craved attention of any kind and often received it from his provocative editorials denouncing organized labor, international bankers, Communists, Jews, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The story of a racist newspaper publisher, The San Diego Crack Pot.

Otay commenced yesterday the work of making time . . . machinery and tools for the Otay Watch Factory were completed on Wednesday, and yesterday the wheels went round, the operators were in place, and watch making began in earnest, it is hoped for many years to come. —San Diego Union, February 7, 1890.

Watchmaking is seldom regarded as an American industry but more than a century ago U.S. innovation in manufacturing was producing quality pocket watches that competed well against the handmade products of the English and Swiss. In towns like Elgin and Rockford, Illinois, watchmaking became a profitable industry. In the 1880s, investors from the Midwest and San Diego decided to bring the “Elgin experience” to the new town of Otay, where they hoped a successful watchmaking plant would engineer growth in the South Bay community.

The story of the Otay Watch Company.

The Otay Watch Works.

We are daily growing more and more in need of street lights. We should like very much to see San Diego lighted by electricity, and we believe that the public are quite willing to pay any reasonable expense of that system. But, light of some kind we must have, and very soon . . . –San Diego Union, July 1, 1885.

The solution, San Diegans decided, was the “Arc Lamp,” clusters of arcing electricity in lamps arranged atop 125-foot steel towers that cast a “twilight glow” over downtown streets.

The story of Lighting the City.

Looking north on Fifth Street, circa 1887.