Nostalgic Pictures of San Diego

The good-old-days, in 'America's Finest City'...

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, 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 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. In 1953, the company became a part of General Dynamics.

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 whores hung out.

The streetcars were replaced by the bus system in 1949.

5th & 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 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!

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. The U.S. was not yet involved in WW II.

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 in 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 - 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.

Have a beautiful San Diego sunshiny day!