Existing comment:
North Island's Military Heritage:
In 1887, San Francisco sugar and shipping magnate John D. Spreckels sailed his yacht Lurline into San Diego Bay. All of Southern California, including San Diego, was on the brink of economic depression at the time, but Spreckels saw nothing but opportunity to invest in the region. Among other ventures, for about $100,000 Spreckels purchased a controlling interest in the Coronado Beach Company, whose properties included the Hotel Del Coronado -- still under construction -- and all of North Island.
The federal government condemned 10 acres of the southwestern corner of North Island in 1893, from which the Army Corps of Engineers built Zuniga Jetty 7,500 feet out into the ocean in order to protect the entrance channel to the bay. In 1901, the government condemned another 38.56 acres of North Island from Spreckels; here they built Fort Pio Pico. For the two parcels, the U.S. paid about $30,000.
Opposite Ballast Point on Point Loma, Fort Pio Pico, named for the last Mexican governor of California, was established as a sub-post of Fort Rosecrans. Except for caretakers who lived at the fort, soldiers crossed the channel daily from Fort Rosecrans to man Pio Pico's 2 3" guns. The only structures built by the Army at Fort Pio Pico were Battery Mead and a cable terminal box. The post was abandoned by the Army in the 1920s, and no trace of it remains today. |