The Journal of San Diego History
SAN DIEGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY QUARTERLY
Summer 1978, Volume 24, Number 3
Thomas L. Scharf, Managing Editor
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By 1885 San Diego’s population had grown to over 5000. New families were arriving at such a fast clip that homes and schools could not be built fast enough. Teaching was still one of the few occupations popularly available to women. Pity the poor schoolmarm above with her forty charges (including the dog) in the days before anyone worried about class size.
A black woman named Margaret Robinson and her husband Albert were innkeepers to a steady stream of hungry gold miners and travelers in the nearby town of Julian. Margaret Robinson’s reputation for good cooking brought so many customers the couple added rooms to their restaurant and made it into a hotel. For close to forty years the Robinson Hotel was a popular attraction in Julian. It still is. In the 1920’s Margaret, then an old woman, sold it and its name changed. Today the “Julian Hotel” is a historic landmark.
