![]() ![]() ![]() The tracks were re-laid at standard gauge. The horses escaped but the coal car was knocked into the bay.Įarly in 1882 the wharf, by then the property of the Pacific Coast Steamship Company, was completely rebuilt. ![]() The first crossing accident occurred soon after when a California Southern engine collided with a horse-drawn car full of coal. It “crossed Fifth Street” on a fill about fifty feet out from the shoreline of the bay, where a crossing was made with the railroad on the wharf the wharf itself had to be lowered six inches to meet the grade of the California Southern. In 1881 the California Southern started to build San Diego’s first outside rail connection. The San Diego Union for May 24, 1873, slyly remarked that “The engine on the railway track of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company’s wharf ran off the track Thursday near the shore end and was not found until Saturday.” Horses were the original motive power steam came soon after. Tracks were laid on it before 1872, and four iron dump cars, which had been brought down from the North by steamer, were being used to haul coal from ship to shore. Until that time steamers of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company had been using the old Culverwell Wharf at the foot of F Street, but all activity was then transferred to the new pier. It was completed in 1869 at a cost of $45,000. In 1868 Horton commenced construction of a wharf near the foot of Fifth Street that extended about six hundred feet to the channel in the bay. Old Town, it will be remembered, had nothing but a beach. After he had chosen the best location for the city, subdivided it, and begun his attempts to dispose of it, he set about the first and more important task in the development of a port town, the building of adequate wharfage facilities. Everything in New San Diego started with “Father” Alonzo Horton. ![]()
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