The Journal of San Diego History
SAN DIEGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY QUARTERLY
Winter 1972, Volume 18, Number 1
James E Moss, Editor
October 20, 1971
Dear Jim,
Congratulations on the Fall 1971 issue of the Journalit is outstanding. The research has been intensive and meticulous and the writing is generally of excellent quality. Because of this I am encouraged to comment on some small but, I think, significant inaccuracies.
The San Diego exposition of 1915-16 is called the Pan-American Exposition on page 16 and the California Pacific International Exposition on page 22. The latter title is correct for the Exposition of 1935. The official name of the 1915 exposition was the Panama-California Exposition and that of 1916 was the Panama-California International Exposition. Because the San Francisco exposition of 1915 was called the Panama-Pacific International Exposition the various titles are frequently, and understandably, confused.
Similar confusion is found in the names of The San Diego Society of Natural History which operates the Natural History Museum. Page 24 perpetuates the confusion.
The Samuel I. Fox Building at Sixth and Broadway was built by Sam Fox, to house the Lion Clothing Company, which he had owned since 1889. When last I looked, the plaque designating the building as the Samuel I. Fox Building was still in place and it is surely incorrect to say, “. . . formerly the Samuel I. Fox Building,” as on page 28.
It is my recollection that La Jolla High School bore that name when it was opened in 1922, became a few years later La Jolla Junior-Senior High School, then in recent years, with the completion of Muirlands Junior High, became again La Jolla High School, never having been La Jolla Junior High School as on page 29.
The Sacramento Valley Building, erected for the 1915 exposition and replaced by the Fine Arts Gallery in 1926 may have been “referred to by some as the United States Building,” as stated on page 25. I do not recall this and find no reference to it. I wonder who were the “some” and why they called it that.
Again, congratulations to you, Jim, to the Society and particularly to the authors of the fine articles.
Cordially,
Robert F. Heilbron
October 30, 1971
Dear Mr. Moss,
As I was the founder, a half owner and the first manager of La Valencia Hotel in La Jolla, please permit me to offer a correction to one item in the interesting article by Martin E. Peterson on William Templeton Johnson in the Fall 1971 issue of the Journal, namely that the latter was the architect of the first unit of the hotel.
Reginald D. Johnson of Los Angeles was the Architect of the first unit and the contractor was Scofield Engineering-Construction Company of San Diego and Los Angeles.
An advance story of the hotel opening for December 15, 1926 is in the La Jolla Light, issue of December 10, 1926.
Issues of the San Diego Union, June 10, 1928 and January 1, 1929 have stories of the second unit designed by Herbert Mann and Tom Shepard and built by Frank Simpson.
The San Diego Union, March 7, 1926 has an article and a picture of “Los Apartementos del Seville” designed by Edgar V. Ulrich. This project was abandoned.
Sincerely,
MacArthur Gorton
