Twisted Tour Guide San Diego
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About this ebook
Avoid The Tourist Herds.
What could be more uninspiring than seeing the identical attractions that everyone else has for decades?
This Twisted Tour Guide escorts you to the places locals don’t want to talk about anymore...the same places people once couldn’t stop talking about. Long after the screaming headlines and sensationalism has subsided, these bizarre, infamous and obscure historical sites remain hidden awaiting rediscovery.
Each visitation site in this guide is accompanied by a story. Many of the narratives defy believability, yet they are true. The profiled cast of characters feature saints and sinners (with emphasis towards the latter). Notorious crimes, murders, accidental deaths, suicides, kidnappings, vice and scandal are captivating human interest tales.
The photography from each profile showcases the precise location where each event occurred. The scenes can seem ordinary, weird and/or sometimes very revealing towards clarifying the background behind events.
If you’re seeking an alternative to conventional tourism, this Twisted Tourist Guide is ideal. Each directory accommodates the restless traveler and even resident looking for something unique and different.
Historical Scandals:
Dead Man’s Point, Old Town’s Flawed Jail, Hanging A Horse Thief, A Rouge Litany of Flawed Mayors, The Rainmaker, Abraham Lincoln’s Love Letters, Kumeyaay Forced Relocation, Children’s Hospital Tainted Blood, Strippergate, Big Boom Bust and Del Mar Racehorse Fatalities.
Flawed Personalities:
Count Agoston Haraszthy, Davis’ Waterfront Folly, The Future Duchess of Windsor, Beach Boy Brian Wilson’s Vagrancy Arrest, Actor Desi Arnez’s Parking Shooting, Bird Rock Bandits Fatal Beating, Distancing From Aviator Charles Lindbergh, Junior Seau, Kellen Winslow II, Online Influencer Ali Abulaban and Unconventional Dr. Seuss.
Architecture With A Distinctive Past:
Stingaree District, The Golden Poppy Brothel, U.S. Grant Hotel, Cabrillo Monument, Escondido Bomb Factory, 101 Ash Street Skyscraper and Horton Plaza
Hospitality and Hauntings
Casa de Estudillo, Cosmopolitan Hotel, Whaley House, Villa Montezuma, El Cortez Hotel and Del Coronado Resort Hotel,
Financial Sleights of Hand
California National Bank Bust, Anti-Gambling Crusade, C. Arnholt Smith’s Crumbled Empire, J. David Investments and the Foreign Currency Scam, Congressman Randy Cunningham, Drug Money Laundering Sting of a Political Fixer, Congressman Duncan Duane Hunter and Gina Champion-Cain
Legacies and Notorious Events
Southern California To Phoenix Road Race, Balboa Park’s Nudist Colony, Japanese-American Internment, Elvis Presley’s 1956 Concert, El Cajon Boulevard Drag Racing Riots, Del Coronado Bridge Suicides, Baseball’s Roberto Clemente Abduction, Midair Collision of PSA Flight #182 and Cessna aircraft and Menacing Runaway Tank.
Infamous Murders
Ruth Sackett Muir, Morse and Goedecke Family Murders, Tara Rand, Donald Tubach, Mobster Frank Bompensiero, Robert Alton Harris, Torrey Pines Beach, Brenda Spencer, San Ysidro McDonald’s Massacre, Broderick versus Broderick, John Morency, San Diego State Graduate Student Kills His Professors, Comic Publisher Todd Loren, Charles Keever and Jonathan Sellers, Father Louis Gutierrez, Heaven’s Gate Mass Suicide, Santana High School Shooting, Serial Killer John Albert Gardner III, Ryan Jenkins, Trading Places With Your Murder Victim, Vanishing McStay Family, Death at Speckles Mansion, Suburban Bondage Killing, Murder and Abduction By A Trusted Family Friend, Homeless Serial Killer, Poolside Party Shooter and Poway Synagogue Shooting
Law Enforcement Related Killings
Fatal City Jail Fire, Hub Loan Shoot Out, Grape Street Park, Officers Christopher Wilson, Jeremy Henwood and Jonathan DeGuzman, Demetrius DuBose and Daniel Chong’s Isolation Hell.
Marques Vickers
Visual Artist, Writer and Photographer Marques Vickers is a California native presently living in the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle, Washington regions.He was born in 1957 and raised in Vallejo, California. He is a 1979 Business Administration graduate from Azusa Pacific University in the Los Angeles area. Following graduation, he became the Public Relations and ultimately Executive Director of the Burbank Chamber of Commerce between 1979-84. He subsequently became the Vice President of Sales for AsTRA Tours and Travel in Westwood between 1984-86.Following a one-year residence in Dijon, France where he studied at the University of Bourgogne, he began Marquis Enterprises in 1987. His company operations have included sports apparel exporting, travel and tour operations, wine brokering, publishing, rare book and collectibles reselling. He has established numerous e-commerce, barter exchange and art websites including MarquesV.com, ArtsInAmerica.com, InsiderSeriesBooks.com, DiscountVintages.com and WineScalper.com.Between 2005-2009, he relocated to the Languedoc region of southern France. He concentrated on his painting and sculptural work while restoring two 19th century stone village residences. His figurative painting, photography and sculptural works have been sold and exhibited internationally since 1986. He re-established his Pacific Coast residence in 2009 and has focused his creative productivity on writing and photography.His published works span a diverse variety of subjects including true crime, international travel, California wines, architecture, history, Southern France, Pacific Coast attractions, fiction, auctions, fine art marketing, poetry, fiction and photojournalism.He has two daughters, Charline and Caroline who presently reside in Europe.
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Twisted Tour Guide San Diego - Marques Vickers
A Leisurely Environment Swathes A Legacy of Death
Dead Man’s Point:
San Diego Marina Adjacent to Seaport Village, San Diego
Adjacent to the picturesque Seaport Village dining and shopping center is one of San Diego’s earliest graveyards. The adjacent terrain to the calm waters of the marina is the final resting location for members of a 1769 Spanish expedition.
The San Antonio and San Carlos limped with tomblike silence into the harbor with a crew decimated by scurvy. The sailing duo resembled skeletal phantoms as they entered the harbor at 1:30 p.m. on May 3rd. They anchored an hour and a half later. At 5:00 p.m. a landing party including a priest departed the ships to bury their dead on the shore.
They returned at sunset. The two ships remained less than 48 hours. There exists no precise epilogue as to their activities other than mooring near a watering location along the coast. The remaining sick on board reportedly showed no improvement to their lingering agony.
The burial location would be christened Punta de los Muertos (Dead Man’s Point). In 1782, Spanish surveyor Juan Pantoja de Arriaga landed near the same location. His crew was commissioned to chart San Diego Bay and other Spanish California ports. The grounds had already been named by residents following the tragedy thirteen years previously. There are conflicting accounts as to whether de Arriaga had any crewman deaths of his own to bury. By then a functioning cemetery had been established on Presidio Hill.
On July 21, 1905, the location would exemplify its naming. As the Gunboat USS Bennington was in the process of exiting San Diego Bay, a boiler exploded onboard. Over sixty officers and crew were killed in the detonation. The ship was beached and partially sunk. A makeshift hospital and morgue was established at the foot of Market Street to treat the seriously injured and transfer the dead for expedient burial.
Amidst the comfortable tranquility of contemporary strolling shoppers, tourists and idlers, it is difficult to fathom the legacy that haunts this port. The ghosts from calamities past intermingle seamlessly amongst oblivious visitors. Such is the nature of history. A topography of death evolves into simply another banal opportunity for commerce.
A Novel’s Fictional Association With A Historic Homestead
Casa de Estudillo:
4000 Mason Street, San Diego
The Casa de Estudillo became associated during the early twentieth century with a widely popular novel called Ramona, published in 1884. Author Helen Hunt Jackson’s story traces a romantic saga woven shortly following the American acquisition of California in the late 1840s.
Estudillo was one of three noteworthy Southern California landmarks including Rancho Camulos and Rancho Guajome that were referenced in Ramona. The Old Town based rancho was the purported wedding location for the captivating Ramona.
In truth, the entire account was a fictional creation, but healthy for stimulating local tourism. The novel’s popularity stirred significant national interest towards the southern California region. This interest spurred promotional train fares starting as low as $1 from St. Louis. Hoards of tourists flocked to view their heroine’s supposed backdrop locations.
Jackson never actually visited Estudillo. She died the year following the book’s publication without revealing any of the true described locales. This inconvenience did not detour the presiding caretaker of Estudillo. He began selling off pieces of the house to fans as souvenirs. His greed created a precarious environment for the continued preservation of the residence.
Jose Maria Estudillo, a prominent local patriarch, originally constructed the extended U-shaped adobe house in 1827. It was designed in the Spanish Colonial style and featured thirteen consecutively set rooms.
Renowned San Diegan John D. Spreckels spearheaded the movement to promote the Ramona connection upon purchasing the failing property in 1906. To justify his renovation investment, Spreckels hired architect Hazel Waterman to modify the structure precisely to the description in the novel. Theatre showman Tommy Getz was hired to manage and promote the property as a tourist attraction.
Getz recognized the intriguing income potential and purchased the house from Spreckels in 1924. Upon Getz’s death a decade later, his daughter continued to market the fabricated history for another three decades. She sold the building to the Title Insurance and Trust Company. One additional owner later, the property was donated to the State of California in 1968.
The charade of being cast as Ramona’s wedding site was abandoned during the 1970s. All Ramona promotional signage was removed and future published literature made no reference to the novel. Tours continue of the historic house with steadily declining interest.
The reason for the state’s reluctance to promote the book’s association became more pragmatic than ethical. People simply ceased reading Ramona.
An Enduring Physical and Spiritual Family Presence in Old Town
2660 Calhoun Street, San Diego
The Casa de Bandini was the grandest mansion within the early settlement of San Diego and the social mecca during the 1830s. The construction consisted of 10,000 adobe bricks weighing an average of 60 pounds each creating thick insulated walls. The ceilings were covered on the inside with heavy muslin to trap insects, dirt and straw that fell from the thatch roof.
Owner Juan Bandini flourished during the Mexican reign of the territory with his cattle ranching operations. When the American government wrested control of California in the late 1840s, his fortune and health began a steady decline. The American merchant-based economy supplanted large cattle haciendas and by 1859, Bandini was forced to sell his property to pay off accumulating debts. He died shortly afterwards.
One decade later, American stagecoach operator, Albert Seeley purchased Bandini’s dilapidated residence with the intention to convert the building into a hotel and stagecoach stop. His renovation employing Greek revival styling added a second floor. The reincarnation was named the Cosmopolitan Hotel and featured a saloon, sitting room, billiards room, barber shop and post office. Hotel guests could savor a view of the plaza below from the balcony.
The property regained its stature as the community’s social center highlighted by galas, balls, dances, weddings and family reunions. By the 1880s, the social scene had permanently shifted from Old Town to the downtown waterfront sector. The railroad lines replaced stagecoaches. Seeley sold the property in 1888. The building was briefly employed as an olive factory as the grounds fell into disrepair.
In 1928, Cave J. Couts Jr., Juan Bandini’s grandson purchased the property with the intention of restoring the building as a memorial to his mother, Ysidora Bandini. She has been rumored to haunt room 11. Couts modified the design into a Steamboat Revival architecture style. In 1930, the building was wired for electricity and gas and renamed the Miramar Hotel and Restaurant. In 2010, another series of renovations restored the restaurant and hotel to its 1870s charm. Stories have circulated for more than a century that spirits have maintained a steady presence throughout. The most reported tale features the Lady in Red occupying rooms 4 and 5.
Davis’ Folly and San Diego’s Failed Waterfront Real Estate
William Davis’ Holdings: Market and East Harbor Drive, San Diego
William Davis’ Residence: 410 Island Avenue, San Diego
It seems inconceivable that downtown San Diego waterfront land could have once been considered a foolish investment. Many consider Alonzo Horton the commercial founder of San Diego. Yet in truth, the most farsighted individual lasted barely three years. His local investment proved a dismal failure.
William Heath Davis was born in Hawaii in 1822, the son of a Boston trader. At 16, he settled in California to learn business with his uncle. They prospered as merchants and ship owners enabling Davis to frequently visit the Mexican pueblo in San Diego. He would marry into a prominent local family in 1847.
During one of his visits, the chief surveyor for the U.S. Boundary Commission convinced Davis that the future of San Diego would be concentrated near the port. At the time, the majority of residents lived inland within Old Town below Presidio Hills.
Davis ambitiously purchased 160 waterfront acres centered by the confluence of Front and Broadway Streets. He then constructed a wharf and warehouse to attract ships. Land was donated to the military for army barracks giving the parcels immediate residents. His territory was labeled New Town.
Residents began to relocate around the plaza of Pantoja Park at the intersection of G and India Streets. Davis’s hotel, the Pantoja House attracted soldiers with its billiard room and saloon. The Herald, San Diego’s first newspaper opened offices above a store. The population steadily grew to 200, but there were eminent challenges.
The lack of fresh water sources became problematic. There were no local streams or artesian wells. Water had to be shipped in from two miles and lumber eight miles away. Davis spent enormous money boring wells before finding potable water.
Davis needed more residents and fresh construction immediately. Most of his mounting lumber and infrastructure expenses were drawn from his San Francisco based investments. He suffered a major financial blow there when one of his major warehouses stocked with trading goods was consumed by fire.
The center of government remained in Old Town and a hesitancy to relocate stymied development. San Francisco’s leading newspaper, Alta California predicted his failure in a September 1851 editorial.
By 1853, a large contingent of residents, businesses and even the newspaper relocated to Old Town. Davis was wealthy but not sufficiently enough to cover his mounting debts. He liquidated the majority of his holdings and returned to San Francisco. Arriving back, he managed his father-in-law’s properties and assisted in laying out the city of San Leandro.
Fifteen years later, Alonzo Horton would arrive from San Francisco. He rejuvenated Davis’ project creating a successful and thriving community. Horton and his wife would even settle in Davis’s intended residence for a period. Davis didn’t remain long enough to actually live there. The prefabricated frame house was shipped from Portland, Maine around the Cape of Good Horn.
Davis’ failure would come to be known locally as Davis’s Folly. He would periodically return to San Diego attempting to sell a remaining 22 parcel lots that he owned. In 1872, he sued the U.S. government for damages. During a particularly bad winter, soldiers had employed wood from his damaged landing pier for fuel to keep warm. He sought $60,000 from Congress, but was only authorized $6,000. After expenses and lawyer’s fees, he only earned a few hundred dollars from the financial settlement.
Davis possessed the legitimate foresight to recognize the value of San Diego waterfront real estate. Sadly, he is primarily known for his failure to parlay his dream into financial security. Worse, he is scarcely remembered at all as a visionary.
A Legacy of Failure That Crowned An Emperor of California Wine
El Campo Santo Cemetery: 2410 San Diego Avenue, San Diego
Sheriffs Museum and Educational Center (Former Haraszthy Jail Site):
2384 San Diego Avenue, San Diego
Count Agoston Haraszthy de Mokesh was an influencer of reputed nobility in shaping the history of California. He was born in Pest, Hungary in 1812 (now a sector of Budapest) and immigrated to the United States in 1840. His extended family joined him two years later in Wisconsin. Although he claimed a lineage of esteemed birth, he was never officially a Count. Reports of his fleeing Hungary for political persecution were exaggerated. In all likelihood the rigidity of the imperial-ruled Hungary offered little economic opportunity for his varied interests and wanderlust.
During several years in Sauk Prairie, Wisconsin, he operated the first steamboat to schedule traffic on the upper Mississippi River. He reportedly traveled through the Great Plains, New Orleans, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware and Washington DC. He claimed to have met sitting President John Tyler during his DC visit.
Asthmatic and in severe debt, he and his family joined a wagon procession heading to the more accommodating climate of California. Instead of the more popular goldrush routing, they followed the Santa Fe Trail, arriving in San Diego in December 1849.
Haraszthy would ultimately mine his own version of gold via his commercial ventures. He would suffer a disproportionate amount of setbacks during his lifetime. He recognized the boundless potential of the San Diego settlement, then population 600. The community featured a navigational harbor, fortified military presence and attractive climate.
He wasted little time in planting Mission wine grapes along the banks of the San Diego River, north of Old Town. The early Spanish missionaries planted Mission grapes for sacramental wine purposes. He created a partnership and accumulated 627 acres of land. The territory was informally called Haraszthyville. He opened a butcher shop and operated a stable and stagecoach line.
Politically savvy, he was elected the settlement’s first county sheriff and town marshal. His father, Charles was elected justice of the peace. In June 1850, the San Diego city council decided to replace their aging adobe jail. Bids were commissioned for a cement structure and Haraszthy reportedly submitted the lowest bid. His evident conflict of interest did not concern the council.
What concerned everyone was his shoddy construction. Building commenced in September at the designated site below El Campo Santo Cemetery. Heavy rains doomed the project. The jailhouse cement walls collapsed. Haraszthy attributed the condition to poor quality lime.
Rather than admit his construction incompetence, Haraszthy asked to be relieved from his contract or given an addition $2,000 to construct a mortared cobblestone jail. The city was nearly destitute financially and agreed to pay the additional balance in script instead of cash.
Money issues within San Diego were so extreme that when Haraszthy attempted to collect taxes at Agua Caliente, he incited a violent uprising and martial law locally.
The jail was completed in January 1851. For nearly a year all parties appeared satisfied. In February 1852, two drunken prisoners who’d simply broken a window to exit engineered the first escape. A month later, a horse thief required only two hours.
The most celebrated and notorious prisoner around the same time was Roy Bean who’d been jailed for shooting a local man. Within an hour, Bean had dug his way to freedom with a penknife. Years later, he would achieve fame in Texas as Judge Roy Bean, the Law West of the Pecos.
Aside from construction flaws and a lack of ongoing maintenance, the biggest problem with Haraszthy’s jail was that it remained unguarded.
In 1859, he had attempted to collect on the script that the city council had paid him before his departure. They refused to pay blaming him for an unworkmanlike jail.
Haraszthy didn’t linger amidst the confines and conflicts within San Diego. He represented the city in the state assembly briefly in Vallejo before accepting an assayer position with the new U.S. Mint in San Francisco. A notable loss of gold reserves and charges of embezzlement resulted in Haraszthy’s resignation and a grand jury investigation. He was exonerated following a five-day trial in 1861.
Despite his money misfortunes, Haraszthy continued to acquire land for his agricultural pursuits. He purchased 200 acres near San Francisco, 640 acres at Crystal Springs and additional land holdings in Sonoma that would ultimately secure his legacy.
He named his property Buena Vista and within two years had planted over 80 acres of grape vines. He experimented with novel techniques including redwood barrels, hillside plantings, immigrant labor, storage tunnels and planting the vines closer together. The normally robust Mission grape withered from phylloxera, a native root disease.
In 1861, the California State Legislature commissioned him to travel to Europe, to collect and purchase grapevine specimens of every known variety. During his travels to France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Spain, he brought back over 100,000 cuttings representing 350 varieties. He was not reimbursed by the legislature. Quite unintentionally, he was forced to become the founder of the Sonoma County wine industry. He wrote a book about his travel adventures entitled Grape Culture, Wines and Wine-Making.
In 1863, Haraszthy created the Buena Vista Viniculture Society in order to stimulate fresh investment funds for capital improvements.
Three years later, phylloxera devastated his vineyards. He resigned his management position. In 1867, he was obliged to declare bankruptcy. His experimental planting techniques were blamed for the vine destruction. The replacement management tore out every other row of vines to maintain the traditionally practiced eight-foot spacing.
Undeterred by his financial reverses, Haraszthy ran for governor in 1867. He supported the unpopular proposed Fourteenth and Fifteenth Constitutional Amendments that guaranteed equal protection under the law and former slaves the right to vote. He advocated the use of Chinese labor. He lost decisively in the election.
Facing total financial ruin, Haraszthy followed his favorite strategy, relocation and reinvention. In 1868, he traveled to Nicaragua with one of his sons to develop an n extensive sugar plantation. His wife, Elenora and daughter joined them. Two months later, Elenora would die from yellow fever. Haraszthy returned to Sonoma to settle her estate and obtain machinery for his plantation project.
He returned to Nicaragua the year following with his 79-year old father Charles who adapted poorly to the tropical climate. Charles left shortly afterwards bound for