Downtown San Diego - 1911.
Shows the bay before it was dredged by and for the Navy in 1934.

Laurel Street Bridge - 1920s.

North Island & Point Loma - 1920s.

San Diego, the U.S. Grant Hotel - 1920s.

Mission Beach-1926. Looking southeast from over the ocean.
That's the Big Dipper roller coaster, and The Plunge was there,
although people used to be able to splash and cannonball instead of
only swim laps, and there was algae along the edges of the pool.

Lane Field, Broadway & Pacific Highway - 1937. Lane Field was in use

from 1936 to 1957. It had green wooden bleachers. In 1958, the Padres

moved to Westgate Park (now the site of Fashion Valley Mall). In 1967,

they moved to Jack Murphy Stadium (now Qualcomm) and an amazing

winning season in 1998 helped them get Petco Park built.

CONVAIR - Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Co. Lindbergh Field Plant - 1930s.
Convair - was relocated from Buffalo , NY to San Diego in 1935. At the

time, seaplanes were thought to be the future of the aircraft industry. During
WWII, Consolidated produced B-24 Bombers and the rate of one per hour.

They also produced PBY (Catalina) Seaplanes. In 1953, the company became

a part of General Dynamics. They produced the Atlas Intercontinental Ballistic Missile which was a key part of the early space program of the USA. Convair

was finally sold off in 1992 and later dismantled.

Broadway, San Diego - 1940s
The U.S. Grant Hotel is still there and recently underwent an
extensive remodeling. Across the street Horton Plaza was just a
nice fountain with grass all around, where the prostitutes hung out.
The streetcars were replaced by the bus system in 1949.

5th Street & Broadway, San Diego, VJ Day - 1945.

(The above ad is from a 1952 Popular Mechanics magazine.)
"Let's all go to work at Convair... You'll make more money there!"
(1950s radio jingle.)

San Diego, CA-1947 No freeways! No freeways, just Pacific Highway and
Hwy 80 (El Cajon Blvd) going East. The San Diego river emptied into Mission Bay, but now the channel goes to Ocean Beach. Also notice the water-filled

gap between North Island and Coronado, where the ferries and Nickel -

Snatchers operated!

San Diego-1950. There is nothing north of Mission Valley but Linda Vista, Mission Beach , Pacific Beach and La Jolla. Linda Vista was a Federal government Housing Project, built in 1941 to house aircraft workers who were building war planes to support our European allies (before we entered WWII).

Oscar's Drive-In - University Avenue - 1940s.
Oscar's was a true drive-in with car hops on roller skates.

Oscar's Drive-In Menu - 1963. Later became Jack In The Box.

Oscar's Menu - 1963. Check the prices!

Chula Vista, National City, Imperial Beach,San Ysidro, and Tijuana 1950.
There was NOTHING on either side of Chula Vista ; today it is the second
biggest city in SD county, and Tijuana now has over a million inhabitants !

San Diego City Limits heading south from Del Mar - U.S. Highway 101 - 1961.
Look at the lines of cool-looking cars backed all the way up Torrey Pines.
See, they had traffic jams then too, but gas was 19 cents a gallon. Before Interstate 5 was built, it typically took about 6 hours to travel to Los Angeles on weekends. Also, there were stretches of roads like Slaughter Alley between Oceanside and San Juan Capistrano .

Have a beautiful San Diego sunshiny day!

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