San Diego, CA

The completion of the Panama Canal in 1914 created excitement in San Diego, since as the first American port-of-call on the West Coast, the city seemed poised for growth. To highlight the area’s natural, cultural, and business strengths, local leaders organized the Panama-California Exposition of 1915-1916. In response, the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad—or simply, the “Santa Fe”— committed to building a new and larger train station to accommodate the expected crowds.

Designed by the San Francisco firm of Bakewell and Brown, the building possesses Spanish flair—red tiled roofs, decorative tile work, arcades, and whitewashed walls—that melded perfectly with the fair buildings going up in Balboa Park. Proud of its structure and ever the self-promoter, the Santa Fe plastered its trademark cross-within-a-circle emblem all over the building, including in the tile work of the domes and on the chandeliers and windows. Threatened with demolition in the 1970s, the station was refurbished to serve an enhanced intercity and commuter rail network. The former Baggage Room and a modern addition at the rear now house a branch of the Museum of Contemporary Art.

San Diego was the earliest Spanish settlement in the state of California. In 1769, a fort was founded on the hills to the northeast of the harbor entrance, and soon thereafter the Mission of San Diego de Alcalá was established by Franciscan friars to work toward the conversion of the American Indians to Christianity. A century later, the Gold Rush brought tens of thousands of adventurers to the state, and many remained to settle permanently along San Diego Bay, one of the finest natural harbors in the country.

A flurry of construction by the Santa Fe brought the first transcontinental train to the San Diego area in 1885, and the town’s population increased six-fold over that decade. The original rail line proved treacherous due to washouts and was soon replaced by a safer coastal route between San Diego and Los Angeles that became known as the Surf Line.

In the late 20th century, San Diego blossomed as a center of the biotechnology and software industries. The presence of large U.S. Naval, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard facilities supports research and technological innovation in the defense sector. Visitors still flock to Balboa Park to visit the fifteen museums, gardens, and performing arts organizations that dot its 1000 acres.