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Old Town San Diego State Historic Park Review
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Old Town San Diego State Historic Park
- Category: Neighborhoods/Streets
- Location: Old Town
Fodor's Review:
The six square blocks on the site of San Diego's original pueblo are the heart of Old Town. Most of the 20 historic buildings preserved or re-created by the park cluster around Old Town Plaza, bounded by Wallace Street on the west, Calhoun Street on the north, Mason Street on the east, and San Diego Avenue on the south. The plaza is a pleasant place to rest, plan your tour of the park, and watch passers-by. San Diego Avenue is closed to vehicle traffic here.
Some of Old Town's buildings were destroyed in a fire in 1872, but after the site became a state historic park in 1968, efforts were begun to reconstruct or restore the structures that remained. Seven of the original adobes are still intact. The tour pamphlet available at Robinson-Rose House gives details about all of the historic houses on the plaza and in its vicinity; a few of the more interesting ones are noted below. Several reconstructed buildings serve as restaurants or as shops purveying wares reminiscent of those that might have been available in the original Old Town; Racine & Laramie, a painstakingly reproduced version of San Diego's first (1868) cigar store, is especially interesting. The noncommercial houses are open daily 10-5; none charge admission, though donations are appreciated.
The Robinson-Rose House (619/220-5422), on Wallace Street facing Old Town Plaza, was the original commercial center of Old San Diego, housing railroad offices, law offices, and the first newspaper press. Built in 1853 but in ruins at the end of the 19th century, it has been reconstructed and now serves as the park's visitor center and administrative headquarters. It contains a model of Old Town as it looked in 1872, as well as various historic exhibits. Just behind the Robinson-Rose house is a replica of the Victorian-era Silvas-McCoy house, originally built in 1869.
On Mason Street, at the corner of Calhoun Street, is the Cosmpolitan Restaurant/Casa de Bandini, once one of the prettiest haciendas in San Diego. Built in 1829 by a Peruvian, Juan Bandini, the house served as Old Town's social center during Mexican rule. Albert Seeley, a stagecoach entrepreneur, purchased the home in 1869, built a second story, and turned it into the Cosmopolitan Hotel, a way station for travelers on the daylong trip south from Los Angeles. It later served as a store and a factory and, now, as the Cosmopolitan restaurant.
Seeley Stable (2630 Calhoun St., Old Town), next door to the Cosmopolitan building, became San Diego's stagecoach stop in 1867 and was the transportation hub of Old Town until near the turn of the century, when trains became the favored mode of travel. The stable houses a collection of horse-drawn vehicles, some so elaborate that you can see where the term "carriage trade" came from. Also inside are western memorabilia, including an exhibit on the California vaquero, the original American cowboy, and a collection of Native American artifacts.
The Casa de Estudillo (4001 Mason St., Old Town) was built on Mason Street in 1827 by the commander of the San Diego Presidio, José Maria Estudillo. The largest and most elaborate of the original adobe homes, it was occupied by members of the Estudillo family until 1887. It was purchased and restored in 1910 by sugar magnate and developer John D. Spreckels, who advertised it in bold lettering on the side as "Ramona's Marriage Place." Despite meticulous attention to historical detail in the restoration, Spreckels' claim that the small chapel in the house was the site of the wedding in Helen Hunt Jackson's popular novel Ramona had no basis in fact; that didn't stop people from coming to see it, however.
The San Diego Union Museum (Twigg St. and San Diego Ave., Old Town) is in a New England-style, wood-frame house prefabricated in the eastern United States and shipped around Cape Horn in 1851. The building has been restored to replicate the newspaper's offices of 1868, when the first edition of the San Diego Union was printed.
Also worth exploring in the plaza area are the free Dental Museum, Mason Street School, Wells Fargo History Museum, First San Diego Courthouse, Casa de Machado y Silvas Commercial Restaurant Museum, and the Casa de Machado Y Stewart. Ask at the visitor center for locations.
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