Mission Beach: San Diego's Coney Island

At the turn of the twentieth century, the city of San Diego, California was going through a period of change and growth. New developments in transportation and changes in American society would help to fuel this expansion. One of the chief architects of the modernization and expansion of San Diego was John D. Spreckels. Spreckels embraced a progressive approach to guiding the expansion of the city, which sought to go beyond the utilitarian needs of the public for transportation, water and power. Spreckels??? development plans not only sought ways to improve the practical quality of life in San Diego but also tried to develop the aesthetic aspects of that life. These efforts are exemplified by Speckles??? development of the Mission Beach community where the decision to construct an amusement park at the center of Mission Beach would not only shape the physical form of the development but also the ???sense??? of what life could be like living in Mission Beach and by extension San Diego. The construction of an amusement park at the center of the Mission Beach development was an approach to urban planning and development that was unique to the West coast in the early 1900s. As other historians, such as Judith Adams, have shown, the American amusement park had initially evolved in the East as commercial ventures independent from real estate and urban planning. These early amusement parks arose in reaction to urban development as their developers sought to profit from the growing middle class. Developers on the West coast, such as Spreckels, utilized the amusement park model to help fuel the move toward suburbanization. In doing so, Spreckels created an urban environment that combined a place to live and work with the fantasy of escape.Histor