Why Balboa Park Exists at All
In 1868, when San Diego had only about 2,300 residents, city leaders set aside 1,400 acres for a public park. The remarkable decision—and the fights that followed—created today's Balboa Park.
Greg Ross
CEO / Owner - Nancy's Vacation Rentals
SAN DIEGO UNCOVERED
Why Balboa Park Exists at AllIn 1868, San Diego did something that must have looked ridiculous to some of its residents.
The city set aside roughly 1,400 acres for a public park.
There was just one problem.
San Diego had only about 2,300 people.
The park was enormous. The city was tiny. The land was mostly undeveloped brush, hills, canyons and arroyos.
And some people thought San Diego would be better off selling it.
Fortunately, they lost that argument.
San Diego Was Barely a City
The San Diego of 1868 bore little resemblance to the metropolitan area we know today.
Alonzo Horton had only recently purchased land for what he called New Town, the area that would eventually become modern downtown San Diego.
Large amounts of former pueblo land remained available around the small settlement, and the city regularly sold land to encourage development and raise money.
Against that backdrop, reserving an enormous tract permanently for recreation was a surprisingly ambitious idea.
It Started With Just 320 Acres
On February 15, 1868, city trustee Ephraim W. Morse proposed reserving two 160-acre pueblo lots for a public park.
Even 320 acres seemed excessive to some people for a town of only a few thousand residents.
Then Morse and Horton looked more closely at the available land.
Instead of making the proposed park smaller, they went dramatically bigger.
They recommended reserving nine pueblo lots—roughly 1,400 acres.
May 26, 1868: San Diego Makes the Decision
On May 26, 1868, San Diego's Board of Trustees formally set aside the nine pueblo lots as a public park.
The City of San Diego still recognizes that date as the creation of what eventually became Balboa Park.
At the time, there were no museums, no California Tower, no Botanical Building and no Spanish Colonial Revival architecture.
There wasn't even a Balboa Park.
It was simply City Park.
Then Came the Land Speculators
The decision didn't end the argument.
Land near the rapidly developing New Town was becoming more valuable, and some people saw 1,400 acres of city-owned land as an opportunity rather than a park.
When San Diego asked the California Legislature to permanently confirm the reservation, efforts were made to reduce the park by hundreds of acres.
San Diegans responded with a petition demanding that the entire reservation be preserved.
“Held in Trust Forever”
On February 4, 1870, the California Legislature ratified the park reservation.
The language was remarkably strong.
The land was to be held in trust by the city for use as a public park.
That state protection made it much harder for future officials or speculators simply to sell the property whenever another use appeared more profitable.
The foresight is difficult to overstate.
The Park Was Worth Almost Nothing
One reason reserving so much land was possible was that the property had very little market value at the time.
Historical accounts describe pueblo lands selling for astonishingly small amounts during the 1860s.
Later writers estimated that the entire park reservation might have brought only hundreds of dollars if sold under the land values of the era.
Today, trying to assemble anything close to 1,400 acres in the center of San Diego would be almost unimaginable.
The city's lack of development in 1868 created a once-in-history opportunity.
For Decades, It Barely Looked Like a Park
Protecting the land didn't instantly create the Balboa Park we recognize.
For much of the nineteenth century, City Park remained largely wild.
The City describes it as a preserve of hilltops, canyons and arroyos.
There were years of debate over what should be built, where improvements should occur and whether pieces of the park should be used for other purposes.
The important thing was that the land was still there.
Then Kate Sessions Arrived
In 1892, horticulturist Kate Sessions obtained permission to operate a nursery on park land.
In return, she agreed to plant 100 trees annually throughout City Park and provide additional plants for San Diego.
Her work began transforming the dry landscape into the greener park San Diegans imagined.
Other civic leaders, horticulturists and landscape planners followed.
The World's Fairs Changed Everything
The next transformation came when San Diego decided to host the Panama-California Exposition of 1915–1916.
The exposition produced many of the architectural landmarks now associated with Balboa Park.
A second major exposition followed in 1935–1936.
Those events turned an unusually large nineteenth-century land reservation into one of America's most distinctive urban cultural parks.
But the Original 1,400 Acres Didn't Stay Untouched
The popular version of the story can sound almost too perfect: visionary founders reserved 1,400 acres and future generations faithfully protected every inch.
Reality was more complicated.
Over time, portions of the original park were transferred, leased or converted to other uses, including transportation infrastructure and institutional development.
The modern park is therefore smaller than the original reservation.
The fight over what counts as appropriate use of Balboa Park has never completely ended.
One Decision Changed San Diego Forever
Think about the numbers again.
About 2,300 residents.
Roughly 1,400 acres.
San Diego effectively reserved well over half an acre of parkland for every person living in the city at the time.
They weren't building a park for the San Diego they had.
They were reserving land for the San Diego they imagined might someday exist.
What If They Had Sold It?
Imagine today's San Diego without Balboa Park.
No California Tower rising over the trees.
No Prado.
No Old Globe.
No museums clustered together in the center of the city.
No vast park separating neighborhoods just minutes from downtown.
The land almost certainly would have become some combination of streets, homes, businesses and other development.
Instead, a tiny nineteenth-century city made an unusually long-term decision.
More than 150 years later, millions of people benefit from it.
San Diego Uncovered
San Diego Uncovered explores the forgotten decisions, remarkable people, strange events and hidden stories that created America's Finest City.
Sometimes history isn't about what a city built.
Sometimes it's about what a city decided not to sell.
Experience More of San Diego
Nancy's Vacation Rentals has been helping guests experience San Diego for more than 25 years. We love sharing not just the city's beaches and attractions, but also the stories behind the places that make San Diego special.
Browse Nancy's San Diego Vacation Rentals
Sources & Further Reading
Keep reading
The World's Fairs That Built Modern Balboa Park
Balboa Park's famous architecture wasn't created all at once. Two major expositions—in 1915-16 and 1935-36—helped transform San Diego's City Park into the cultural landmark we know today.
Alcazar Garden
Balboa Park's Tiny Moorish-Inspired Escape
How Balboa Park Got Its Name — And the Story San Diego Got Wrong
Discover the heated naming debate, the Cabrillo proposal, the choice of Balboa—and why the familiar story of a naming-contest winner may not be true.