South Mission Beach

(Photo, from the San Diego City Clerk's office, by H A "Jimmy" Erickson)

A stunning 1930 aerial of South Mission Beach I hadn’t seen before.  In the foreground, right to left, you can barely make out the bridge to Ocean Beach that was built in 1914 and torn down in 1950.  From 1924 to 1949 you could ride the streetcar across it and up to La Jolla.  Center left are the Plunge and Mission Beach Ballroom buildings and the Mission Beach Amusement Park — today’s Belmont Park.  On the bay side, across from the roller coaster is the recognizable shape of Bonita Basin, where Mariner’s Point and the Bahia Hotel are today.  The newly-completed Causeway connected Midway Drive with Crown Point, where new cement sidewalks awaited homes that wouldn’t be built right away.  In the distance, sparkling in the sun, are the new two-story dorms at the San Diego Army & Navy Academy.  The depression deepened shortly after this photo was taken.  People in Crown Point who had built homes, lost them when they couldn’t pay their property taxes.  The academy lost students, couldn’t keep up payments on the loan they took out to build the dorms and, in 1936, sold the property, which became Brown Military Academy.

Click HERE to read about Jimmy Erickson and see a lot more photos