San Diego Yesterday

San Diego Union, Jan. 18, 1904

There are men and women, boys and girls, steadily, but surely, patrolling the path that leads to eternal ruin. It is for us to rescue them. –Mrs. R. A. Rood, vice-president, Purity League of San Diego

On Friday afternoon, August 7, 1903, forty gravely concerned San Diego women went to church. Meeting at the First Methodist Episcopal Church on the corner of D (Broadway) and Fourth Street, the ladies discussed the growing moral peril found in city’s notorious Stingaree District home to “houses houses of impurity” and unfortunate women “caught in the toils.”

The story of San Diego’s first attempt to close the “Stingaree.” The Purity League.

Student sports were in their infancy in 1900 at San Diego Normal School but the college we know today as San Diego State University was eager to launch competitive sports. From its campus on Park Blvd. in University Heights, the one-year-old school was ready for football.

The story of the First Football at San Diego State.

The Normal School champions of 1900. Courtesy of Special Collections and University Archives, San Diego State University, Library and Information Access.

 

 

Just a reminder.  Tomorrow night at the Central Library I’ll be giving a book talk and signing for The Way We Were in San Diego.  It starts at 6:30 p.m. at the Central Library.  Interesting tales and photographs of San Diego history and maybe a good discussion, as well.  Book Talk

And by the way, if anyone has the book already feel free to give it a review on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/dp/1609494415   It really helps!

Warning: Avoid the plank road. A public warning was issued yesterday by the El Centro branch of the auto club of southern California that travel to Yuma via the plank road is dangerous. . . Parties attempting to travel suffer from thirst and hunger and are sometimes in danger of death as there is little chance of succor arriving unless a call for aid reaches Holtville or Yuma. –Imperial Valley Press, April 29, 1919.

The story of San Diego’s wooden road across the sand dunes: the Plank Road.

They called them the “White Flyers of the Pacific.” The sister ships Yale and Harvard were the fastest steamships on the California coast. Between 1911 and 1936—with a few years lost to World War I–the way to travel in style from San Diego to Los Angeles to San Francisco was by coastal steamship on the white liners.

The story of San Diego’s Harvard and Yale.

SS Yale

Here’s something for your calendar. On Dec. 7 I”ll be giving a book talk and signing for The Way We Were in San Diego. It starts at 6:30 p.m. at the Central Library in the third floor floor auditorium.  Since the library is the host, I’ll pay special attention that night to the history of our library and show a lot of historic photographs of the Carnegie and the current Central Library.

Here’s the announcement from the library: 111115_Press_Release_Rick Crawford

San Diego's Carnegie Library

Here’s an interview I did with The History Press as the Way We Were in San Diego (2011) was going to press. Some of the questions are fun. http://historypresswest.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/interview-with-richard-w-crawford-author-of-the-way-we-were-in-san-diego-history-press-october-2011/

The book is available now. $16.99

and in the stores. Well, bookstores, if you can find one. The Upstart Crow in Seaport Village stocks the book.  So does the SOHO stores in the Whaley House and Marston House. And, of course, there’s Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/dp/1609494415 (Log on and give it a thumbs up!)

I’ll be doing a few author talk/signings in the next couple months. On Nov. 10 I’ll be at the Upstart Crow bookstore: Author Event   On Nov. 17 I’ll be at Save Our Heritage Organisation in the Adobe Chapel on Conde Street in Old Town: http://sohosandiego.org/main/event_waywewere.htm  And on Dec. 7 I’ll do an evening book lecture at the Central Library. 

You can also order the book directly from me. Just send me a note at: r-crawford@cox.net and I’ll get a signed copy off to you! 

Sister Aimee, ca. 1920

When Aimee dived into the Pacific Ocean and emerged on the Mexican desert, thus performing a feat which will not be duplicated until babies grow on walnut trees, she reckoned that the rest of the world was as foolish as she. –San Diego Herald, July 29, 1926

The apparent drowning death of famed evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson off the coast of Santa Monica in 1926 shocked the world. Even more stunning was her reappearance weeks later in the Sonora desert. The sensational story she told of her kidnapping and miraculous escape spawned front-page news coverage that lasted for months. But for a fearless San Diego newspaper editor, the reporting of Aimee’s “ten days in a love shack,” meant Federal indictment and a lurid court trial.

The story of The Evangelist and the Muckraker.

Between two and four o’clock yesterday morning a woman named Maggie McCutcheon, whose sporting title is Maggie Bangs, was killed by pistol shot under circumstances that leave it somewhat of a mystery . . . –San Diego Union, June 19, 1881.

British “Bulldog” revolver

The story of death in San Diego’s notorious “Stingaree” district: Maggie Bangs.