Pacific Beach Once Had a Horse Racetrack

Pacific Beach Once Had a Horse Racetrack | San Diego Uncovered

SAN DIEGO UNCOVERED

Pacific Beach Once Had a Horse Racetrack

Before Pacific Beach had Garnet Avenue traffic, beach bars, surf shops and vacation rentals, it had something much harder to imagine:

A one-mile horse racetrack.

In 1887, during one of San Diego's wildest real-estate booms, developers built the Pacific Beach Driving Park near the northeastern edge of what was then called False Bay.

There were stables. A grandstand. Special excursion trains. Horse races. Sporting exhibitions.

And on at least one extraordinary day, thousands of spectators descended on the area.

Pacific Beach wasn't just being developed as a neighborhood.

It was being marketed as a destination.

Pacific Beach Was Basically a Real-Estate Startup

Modern Pacific Beach can feel inevitable. In 1887, it wasn't.

The area was largely undeveloped coastal land several miles from downtown San Diego. Developers needed to convince people not only to buy lots there, but to make the trip out and see the place.

The Pacific Beach Company subdivided the community during the Southern California land boom of the late 1880s.

The strategy included attractions, education and transportation: a proposed college, a railroad—and nearby, a racetrack.

The Racetrack Actually Came First

In July 1887, the Southern California Breeders' Association acquired Pueblo Lot 1797 near False Bay and announced plans for a formal racing facility.

Contemporary newspaper reports described a mile-long track, a half-mile course, grandstand, wells and a high board fence around the grounds.

By early August, dozens of workers were reportedly grading the site in preparation for races.

The facility became known as the Pacific Beach Driving Park and, in later years, the American Driving Park.

Where Was It?

The track sat east of Rose Creek near the northeastern edge of Mission Bay, in an area that looks nothing like a nineteenth-century racing complex today.

A City of San Diego environmental study of the De Anza area notes that a 1903 topographic map still showed part of a racetrack at the northern end of what is now Mission Bay Park.

Historical maps and photographs are among the few clues left to its location.

The Railroad Had to Go Around It

One of the strangest clues to the track's importance is the route of Pacific Beach's early railroad.

When the San Diego, Old Town & Pacific Beach line was built toward the community in late 1887 and early 1888, its route curved around the racetrack.

The railroad reached Pacific Beach in 1888 and made the remote development far easier to reach from downtown.

That connection mattered enormously for both the racetrack and the land company.

Race Day Was Also a Sales Pitch

The track wasn't isolated from Pacific Beach's development strategy.

Events gave San Diegans a reason to ride out to a place many otherwise might never have visited.

Once there, they saw the bay, the ocean, the new streets, the proposed college and—most importantly—the lots developers hoped they would buy.

In that sense, horse racing doubled as nineteenth-century experiential marketing.

Thousands Came to Pacific Beach

By 1888, the Driving Park was staging ambitious programs.

An October racing schedule advertised running races, trotting and pacing, followed by special “Ladies' Day” and “People's Day” programs.

Special trains ran repeatedly between San Diego and the racetrack.

Historical reporting describes the October 1888 People's Day exhibition drawing an estimated 7,000 spectators.

For a newly developing coastal community, that was a remarkable crowd.

And It Wasn't Just Horses

The Driving Park evolved into a broader entertainment venue.

Historical accounts describe baseball games, athletic contests, exhibitions and other public spectacles.

Later attractions reportedly included balloon ascensions and parachute exhibitions.

One particularly strange account describes a monkey named Yan Yan participating in a parachuting attraction during a Christmas program.

Pacific Beach history gets weird quickly.

Horse Racing Never Became the Big Business Promoters Hoped

Despite the spectacle, the track's long-term success was limited.

The real-estate boom that helped create Pacific Beach collapsed toward the end of the 1880s.

Property sales slowed. Development plans stalled. The San Diego College of Letters struggled and eventually closed.

The racetrack continued to see intermittent use, but the grand vision never fully materialized.

Then Nature Hit the Track

In December 1889, severe flooding struck the Rose Canyon and False Bay area.

A San Diego History Center account says the floods completely wiped out the race track and damaged much of the nearby railroad.

The track later reappeared in various forms and the site continued to be associated with racing, including automobile events in the early twentieth century, but its original boom-era moment had passed.

Pacific Beach Reinvented Itself—Again and Again

The racetrack wasn't the only ambitious idea that came and went.

Pacific Beach also had the San Diego College of Letters, military-school uses, extensive lemon groves and rail connections that changed repeatedly over the decades.

The neighborhood we know today emerged from multiple reinventions rather than one uninterrupted development plan.

There's Almost Nothing Left to See

That's part of what makes the story so surprising.

You can drive through this part of San Diego today without any obvious indication that thousands of spectators once arrived to watch horses race around a mile-long oval.

The grandstand is gone.

The stables are gone.

The original railroad is gone.

The track itself disappeared into the modern landscape.

But old maps and photographs preserve the outline of a very different Pacific Beach.

Before Del Mar, There Was Pacific Beach

Del Mar eventually became the name San Diegans associate with horse racing.

But nearly half a century before the Del Mar racetrack opened in 1937, spectators were already taking trains toward the coast to watch races at Pacific Beach.

For a brief period in the 1880s, one of San Diego's most ambitious sporting venues sat beside the bay in a neighborhood developers were desperately trying to put on the map.

The Bigger Story Is Real Estate

The racetrack is fun history.

But underneath it is a remarkably modern development strategy.

Developers needed people to discover a new neighborhood.

So they created reasons to visit it.

Build transportation.

Create entertainment.

Generate crowds.

Sell the lifestyle.

Then sell the land.

Pacific Beach's racetrack wasn't just about horses. It was about creating demand for Pacific Beach.

San Diego Uncovered

San Diego Uncovered explores the lost places, strange events, remarkable people and forgotten ideas behind America's Finest City.

Next time you're sitting in Pacific Beach traffic, imagine the same neighborhood with steam trains, grandstands and racehorses.

San Diego has reinvented itself more times than most of us realize.

Explore Pacific Beach With Nancy's

Nancy's Vacation Rentals has been helping guests experience San Diego for more than 25 years, including Pacific Beach and the surrounding coastal communities. We love sharing the stories behind the neighborhoods our guests come here to experience.

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Sources & Further Reading

• San Diego History Center — Whatever Happened to Izard Street?
• San Diego History Center — The High Iron to La Jolla
• San Diego History Center — History of San Diego, 1542–1908
• City of San Diego — De Anza / Mission Bay Historical Environmental Review
• Times of San Diego — The Pacific Beach Driving Park