Posts Tagged ‘Matthew Sherman’

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.

As crowds gathered at the offices of one of Southern California’s leading financial institutions, the bank president, J. W. Collins emerged to reassure nervous depositors, explaining: “Owing to continued shrinkage in deposits and our inability to promptly realize on our notes and account, the bank is temporarily closed.” Merely a precaution, Collins soothed, “it is beyond question that depositors will be paid in full.”

Continue reading about the notorious 1891 San Diego Banking Scandal.