The early twentieth century gave the city its grandest set piece. For the Panama-California Exposition of 1915–16 — staged to mark San Diego as the first U.S. port of call for ships coming north through the new Panama Canal — architect Bertram Goodhue filled Balboa Park with a Spanish Colonial Revival fantasia of towers, arches, and tiled domes. The California Tower, the Cabrillo Bridge, and the Botanical Building still stand, and the park grew into the largest urban cultural park in the country. Add the Victorian turrets of the 1888 Hotel del Coronado across the bay and the white adobe of the old mission, and San Diego's look comes into focus: mission, Victorian seaside, and Spanish-colonial arch, all under the same bright sky.
Spanish rule gave way to Mexican rule in 1821, and the surrounding ranchos shaped a generation of life before California passed to the United States in 1848. San Diego incorporated as an American city in 1850, but the old settlement clustered around the presidio in what is now Old Town. The modern downtown is the work of one man's gamble: in 1867 Alonzo Horton bought the bayfront flats and laid out a 'New Town' close to the water, betting that a city should sit beside its harbor. He was right, and the center of San Diego has faced the bay ever since.
Why People Visit San Diego
San Diego rewards visitors with a rare mix: deep early-California history, a working Navy harbor, world-class parks and museums, and miles of Pacific coast, all under a famously mild sky. People come for Balboa Park and the bay, for the beaches and the sunsets off Point Loma, and for the layered story of the city where California began. It is historic, easygoing, and unmistakably Californian.
