San Diego's Beach Tent City Lasted Nearly 40 Years
Long before vacation rentals, thousands of visitors spent their summers in Coronado's Tent City—a remarkable beachfront resort of tents and cottages that operated from 1900 to 1939.
Greg Ross
CEO / Owner - Nancy's Vacation Rentals
SAN DIEGO UNCOVERED
San Diego's Beach Tent City Lasted Nearly 40 YearsImagine spending your San Diego vacation steps from the Hotel del Coronado.
You wake to the ocean, spend the afternoon swimming and boating, listen to a band concert in the evening—and then return to your accommodations.
Except you're not staying at the Del.
You're sleeping in a canvas tent.
From 1900 until 1939, Coronado operated one of Southern California's most remarkable summer resorts: Tent City.
And calling it a campground doesn't really do it justice.
The Idea Was Surprisingly Modern
At the turn of the twentieth century, the Hotel del Coronado was already one of California's great resorts. But its luxury rooms weren't affordable to everyone.
Just south of the hotel, John D. Spreckels and the Coronado Beach Company developed a different kind of vacation experience: rows of rentable canvas tents and palm-thatched cottages along the Silver Strand.
The concept opened the Coronado resort experience to a broader middle-class market while giving inland residents an escape from brutal summer heat.
This Wasn't Roughing It
The word “tent” makes the accommodations sound primitive.
They weren't.
City of San Diego historical material describes tents with wooden floors, electricity and running water. Coronado's historic context documents an efficient water system, sewer service and garbage collection.
Guests could rent accommodations for anything from an afternoon to an entire summer.
In other words, Tent City was closer to an early beachfront resort community than a modern campground.
A Vacation Rental Before Vacation Rentals?
The comparison isn't exact, but it's hard to miss.
Families rented furnished accommodations for short stays in a desirable coastal neighborhood. They came for the beach, climate, entertainment and lifestyle rather than merely a hotel room.
Tent City packaged the experience of living at the beach.
More than a century later, that's still one of the central reasons people choose a San Diego vacation rental.
It Became a City of Its Own
Historical sources describe several hundred tents and thatched-roof cottages arranged in orderly rows.
Over time the resort offered far more than lodging.
Visitors could swim, boat and fish. There were band concerts, a bathhouse, bowling, a merry-go-round and other entertainment. Coronado Historical Association materials also describe carnival attractions and family activities.
Tent City even published its own Tent City News, carrying concert programs, sporting events, church-service schedules, visitor news and advertisements.
The Numbers Became Enormous
Tent City quickly grew beyond a quirky experiment.
Coronado's 2025 Historic Context Statement reports that more than 500 people lived there during the first 1900 season and that 68,139 people attended evening pavilion concerts that year.
By the opening of the 1914 season, Coronado Historical Association records say approximately 10,000 people arrived.
For a seasonal canvas resort, the scale was extraordinary.
Why Was It So Popular?
Air conditioning wasn't part of ordinary American life.
For residents of inland Southern California and Arizona, the Pacific coast offered something incredibly valuable: natural air conditioning.
Historical accounts specifically describe Tent City attracting visitors escaping the summer heat of inland areas and the Imperial Valley.
The beach wasn't merely recreation.
It was relief.
Spreckels Understood Something Bigger
John D. Spreckels didn't just own the Hotel del Coronado and Tent City.
At various times his interests included the ferry system, streetcars, newspapers and railroads.
His businesses helped move people around San Diego—and often moved them toward places in which he had invested.
Tent City fit that larger strategy beautifully: transportation brought visitors to Coronado, and the resort gave them a reason to stay.
Hotel Del for the Wealthy. Tent City for Everyone Else.
The contrast was part of Tent City's appeal.
Next door stood one of America's grand Victorian resort hotels.
Beside it was a sprawling seasonal community designed to make the same coastline accessible at a much lower price.
Coronado Historical Association summarizes the distinction neatly in its interpretation of early Coronado: the Hotel del Coronado served the wealthy while Tent City appealed to the average family.
It Lasted Almost Four Decades
Temporary summer attractions usually disappear quickly.
Tent City didn't.
It operated from 1900 through the late 1930s, evolving as generations of families returned to Coronado.
The City of San Diego, San Diego History Center and Coronado Historical Association identify 1939 as the year Tent City finally closed as the area changed and highway development arrived.
Then an Entire Vacation Community Disappeared
Today, visitors can walk around Coronado without realizing that hundreds of tents and cottages once filled the shoreline south of the Del.
Historic aerial photographs make the scale startling.
What now feels like permanent geography once contained a dense seasonal neighborhood filled with vacationers.
That's one of the recurring surprises of San Diego history: places that feel inevitable today often looked completely different only a few generations ago.
San Diego Tourism Has Changed. The Reason People Come Hasn't.
Visitors in 1900 wanted many of the same things visitors want today.
They wanted to wake up near the water.
They wanted room for the family.
They wanted entertainment nearby.
They wanted to escape everyday life and temporarily live like a local beside the Pacific.
The accommodations have changed dramatically.
The appeal of a San Diego beach vacation hasn't.
San Diego Uncovered
San Diego Uncovered explores the lost places, strange attractions, remarkable people and forgotten stories behind America's Finest City.
Long before beachfront condos, booking apps and vacation rentals, San Diego already knew how to turn living by the ocean into an unforgettable vacation.
Stay Near the Stories
Nancy's Vacation Rentals has been helping guests experience San Diego for more than 25 years. Today's accommodations may have changed considerably from Coronado's canvas cottages, but the reason people come to San Diego remains remarkably familiar: sunshine, beaches and the chance to live beside the Pacific—even if only for a few days.
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