A Brief History of Pacific Beach

Photo Credit: The Beachcomber

Brief History of Pacific Beach

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December 19, 2011 • Kelsey Boulger, Staff Reporter  
Filed under Features, Top Stories

Pacific Beach or PB as it is known by the locals, is a neighborhood in San Diego, bounded by La Jolla to the North and Mission Beach to the South.  Pacific Beach is known today as a beach community and home to young college students as well as families.  Its namesake comes from its stretch of beach approximately 3.2 miles long and paralleled by the Boardwalk.  As with many California cities, a history of its development can be traced back to the completion of the cross-country railroad in the late 1880s.
Pacific Beach was developed during the boom years of 1886-1888 by A. G. Gassen, D. C. Reed, Charles W. Pauley, R. A. Thomas, and O. S. Hubbell. To attract people, the co-founders built a Race Track and the San Diego College of Letters, neither of which are still around today. In addition, a railway connected Pacific Beach with downtown San Diego, later extending to La Jolla.  Through the decades, Pacific Beach grew larger and larger, in the 1960s the development continued to increase with the city’s investment in Mission Bay Park, as well as in developing hotels like the Islandia or Vacation Village.  The opening of Sea World in 1964 also helped PB grow.  Today, it is home to many people and an ever-changing landscape.
Having moved to Pacific Beach in the summer of 1978 with his brother, Michael Boulger has seen some of PB’s transformation.  “Over that summer, Kelly and I rented a small apartment off the alley on Feldspar behind the Wells Fargo.”  In the fall, his sister Lizzy and he enrolled in San Diego State University and they moved to the San Diego State dorms.  Although no longer living in PB, Michael continued to hang out here.  His favorite place to go to the beach was the stretch between Feldspar and Crystal Pier.  “We used to spend entire days at the beach.” When asked what was his favorite memory of living in PB Michael responded with a very amusing story.  “It was the summer of ’78; I had just moved down to San Diego.  Kelly and I had some friends staying with us from out of state.  We had gone down to the beach for the day.  Some guy came down with two giant truckloads of snow.  Picking up the snow, I formed a snow ball and threw it at Kelly.  The next thing I know I am in the middle of a giant snowball fight on the beach.  Eventually the cops came down and broke it up.  The funniest thing about it was that Kelly’s friends were from Wisconsin and they said it was the best snowball fight they had ever been in.”  Reminiscing about those younger days brought back many memories of Pacific Beach and how it used to be.  “It was not nearly as dense as it is today” Boulger said.  “There was a better mixture of young and old people; people didn’t just come to PB to party on Garnet back then.” Michael also seemed convinced that PB had lost some of its originality.  Some of his favorite places included the Roxy, not the PB post office, and Tug’s Tavern an old Pub and restaurant, today known as Hennessey’s.  Today, Boulger no longer resides in Pacific Beach, but in the neighboring Bay Park Community.
Local students attending Mission Bay have grown up in Pacific Beach and call it home.  Emily Martinet’s favorite thing about living in Pacific Beach is its small community.  “I’ve lived in Pacific Beach my entire life,” she said, “I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.”  Like many other locals, Emily loves the ocean and being close to the beach.  Other students like Jen Davis, who moved to Pacific Beach, shared similar feelings of why Pacific Beach is there favorite place to live.  “I love how I can just hop on my bike and get anywhere.  I also like all of the local food places, like Konos and Taco Surf, and of course Mr. Frosties.”  Jen also says that, “growing up in PB is unique because not everybody gets to live in such a cool place that’s near the ocean.  Living here is much different from where I used to live; it’s hard to compare the two.”
Today, Pacific Beach is home to a younger crowd of people, much different than the first people who settled here in the 1880s.  Over time it has taken on new looks and grown significantly into a busy town.  Looking at its history we can better see how Pacific Beach has changed as well as guess at what it will be like in the future.

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