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Made in the Year the Coronado Railroad Was Completed.

A fantastic set of three original San Diego manuscript surveys mapping the course of the Coronado Railroad as it stood upon completion in 1888.

These three maps trace the Coronado Railroad from downtown San Diego, south around San Diego Bay, and back north along the Silver Strand to Coronado. Exhibit A (which is mislabelled as stating that it extends all the way to the south limit of National City) shows the railroad between its terminus at 5th and L and Rigel Street, with detail of the present-day Chicano Park and Barrio Logan neighborhoods. Exhibit B shows the National City portion, until approximately the Sweetwater River. Finally, Exhibit C, which is the easiest to recognize, shows the entire south half of the bay and the return journey up the Silver Strand with detail in Coronado.

The maps, which span some 15 linear feet, are extraordinarily detailed. Block-by-block detail is shown with survey points marked. The maps were evidently produced as some sort of legal proceeding that sought to establish the lands upon which the company was established. The map was certified by H. L. Story, the head of the Railroad, and mapped by the city's chief engineer O. N. Stanford and his assistant T. M. Shaw.

The Coronado Railroad

The original 20.3-mile Coronado Belt Line was designed, engineered, and constructed during the years 1886 to 1888. It originally passed through the cities of San Diego, National City, Chula Vista, Imperial Beach, and Coronado. The line was developed as part of a much larger land development scheme through the partnership of Elisha S. Babcock and Hampton L. Story, and first initiated as of 1884. By 1889, John D. and Adolph B. Spreckels had obtained controlling interest in several Babcock and Story enterprises, fully buying out Story's interest in the Coronado Railroad Company.

The line was built in four phases: two parallel short ferry-to-hotel shuttle lines in Coronado (each about 1.5 miles long, constructed in 1886 and 1887, electrified in 1893); two segments (beginning at both ends of the line), the 6.5-mile length from downtown San Diego to National City, and the Coronado to South San Diego section (west of Imperial Beach, the 7.6-mile "Silver Strand" segment along the peninsula)—each constructed during January-March 1888, simultaneously; and, the 6-mile middle length between National City and South San Diego, constructed in May 1888.

During the 1888-1908 years, the portion of the Coronado Belt Line between downtown San Diego and the Silver Strand operated primarily as a freight line for land development and early businesses. The Silver Strand third of the line was otherwise a passenger service segment during peak periods of tourism. The completed short line was U-shaped, linking the ferry wharves serving San Diego-Coronado to the Hotel del Coronado, to a tourist tent resort (Coronado Tent City) on the Silver Strand, continuing down the sandy breakwater and turning up along the mainland shore to San Diego. The Coronado Belt Line also attached the private cars of wealthy patrons of the Hotel del Coronado to its locomotives, thus connecting vacationing Easterners via the Coronado Belt Line to the cross-country Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe line at a transfer point in National City. The line also played a significant role in delivering construction materials for the completion of features associated with the Hotel del Coronado, and it was key to military operations on the sandy breakwater and in Coronado during World War II.

Rarity

We trace no other 19th-century maps that focus on the Coronado Railroad through OCLC or other means. No maps on the subject were located at the San Diego History Center.