The Night the Old Globe Burned Down

The Night the Old Globe Burned Down | San Diego Uncovered

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The Night the Old Globe Burned Down

On the morning of March 8, 1978, San Diego lost one of its most beloved cultural landmarks.

The Old Globe Theatre in Balboa Park was destroyed by an arson fire.

What made the event even more alarming was the timing: only two weeks earlier, another arson fire had destroyed Balboa Park's Electric Building and devastated the Aerospace Museum inside.

San Diego suddenly had a frightening question to answer: Was someone deliberately burning Balboa Park?

The Old Globe Was Born at a World's Fair

The theater's story began with San Diego's 1935 California Pacific International Exposition. A replica Elizabethan theater was constructed in Balboa Park for abbreviated performances of Shakespeare.

The attraction proved far more enduring than anyone could have expected. What began as exposition entertainment developed into a major San Diego cultural institution.

By the 1970s, the Old Globe had been part of the city's cultural life for more than four decades.

Then Balboa Park Started Burning

At 8:13 p.m. on February 22, 1978, firefighters were dispatched to the Electric Building in Balboa Park.

The wood-framed exposition-era structure housed the San Diego Aerospace Museum and International Aerospace Hall of Fame. It had no sprinkler system, and the fire spread with devastating speed.

Historic aircraft, engines, books, photographs and aviation memorabilia were lost. The City of San Diego identifies the cause as arson.

San Diego was still absorbing that loss when, exactly two weeks later, fire struck again.

March 8, 1978: The Globe Goes Up in Flames

On March 8, another third-alarm fire tore through Balboa Park—this time at the Old Globe.

The landmark theater was destroyed.

City records place the estimated loss at approximately $4 million.

Fortunately, the destruction was not total across the theater complex. Administrative offices, rehearsal space, dressing rooms, scenery and costume shops, and the Cassius Carter Centre Stage survived.

Investigators Determined It Was Arson

The Old Globe confirms that the March 8 blaze was deliberately set. Contemporary reporting later placed the fire's origin in an exterior alcove near the stage area.

The coincidence was impossible to ignore: two major Balboa Park landmarks had been destroyed by arson within fourteen days.

The City Council offered a reward for information leading to the identification, arrest and conviction of those responsible, while police intensified their investigation and security increased around the park.

And There Was Almost a Third Major Fire

Only days after the Globe burned, another fire was discovered at the House of Hospitality.

This one was extinguished before it could become another catastrophe. Contemporary records show a private security guard was arrested in connection with that incident and was investigated in relation to the Globe fire.

The sequence deepened public anxiety about the safety of Balboa Park's aging buildings.

The Fires Exposed an Uncomfortable Problem

Many Balboa Park buildings had been created for temporary expositions decades earlier. By 1978, some were aging wooden structures with serious fire-safety vulnerabilities.

After the fires, contemporary reporting found that only a handful of park buildings were protected by sprinkler systems.

The disasters intensified a debate San Diego had already been having: preserve the exposition-era structures, reconstruct them, or replace buildings that had long outlived their intended lifespan?

But the Globe Refused to Stay Dark

The most remarkable part of the story may be what happened next.

The theater organization didn't simply shut down and wait for a new building.

Within hours, its board was working on alternatives. Productions were relocated, and plans moved forward for the summer Shakespeare Festival.

The fire destroyed a building. It did not destroy the theater company.

A Temporary Theater Became Part of the Recovery

To keep the Shakespeare Festival alive, the organization developed an outdoor Festival Stage in Balboa Park.

Meanwhile, fundraising and planning began for a permanent replacement.

In 1982, a new 580-seat Old Globe Theatre opened with Shakespeare's As You Like It.

In one of history's stranger echoes, the Festival Stage itself would later be destroyed by another arson fire in 1984.

The Aerospace Museum Rose Again Too

The February fire had destroyed much of the Aerospace Museum's collection, but San Diego rallied around that institution as well.

Money and replacement artifacts were raised, and the museum reopened in the renovated Ford Building in December 1978—less than a year after the disaster.

The institution eventually became today's San Diego Air & Space Museum.

The Buildings Burned. The Institutions Survived.

There is a strange contradiction at the heart of Balboa Park's 1978 fires.

They destroyed irreplaceable objects and historic structures. Yet the disasters also galvanized public support for institutions that might otherwise have struggled for funding and attention.

San Diego History Center research notes that rebuilding efforts gained momentum after the fires.

That doesn't make the destruction beneficial. It does show something important about cities: sometimes people don't realize how much a place matters until they see it disappearing.

Imagine Balboa Park in the Spring of 1978

Within fourteen days, two major cultural landmarks had burned.

Police were searching for arsonists.

Fire inspectors were examining other historic structures.

Guards were patrolling the park.

Residents were wondering what might burn next.

And in the middle of it all, theater employees were figuring out where they could put on that night's show.

The show, quite literally, went on.

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Sources & Further Reading

• City of San Diego — 1978 Balboa Park Fires
• The Old Globe — History
• San Diego History Center — The Old Globe Theatre
• San Diego History Center — Balboa Park History 1978
• San Diego Air & Space Museum — The 1978 Fire