Ocean Beach
In San Diego he became editor for the San Diego Sun. Then, with San Francisco associate Frank Higgins, he opened a real estate firm, Carlson & Higgins, just when the real estate boom of 1886–1888 took off. The firm developed Ocean Beach in 1887. They bought 600 acres (2.4 km2) of pueblo land and gave it the name Ocean Beach. They laid out and named the streets, sold lots, and constructed a fancy Victorian-style hotel called the Cliff House. They sold 2200 lots in the first few weeks. To lure buyers they promised to build a rail line to downtown, since the development was 2½ hours from downtown by carriage.
Carlson and Higgins actually did develop a short rail line from Roseville (Point Loma) to Ocean Beach in 1888. They also attempted to build a rail line from Old Town to Roseville, but the project foundered in legal troubles after less than a mile of construction. Meanwhile San Diego's real estate boom had ended and the development was in financial trouble. His partner Higgins committed suicide in 1889. Carlson sold the Ocean Beach development to an Eastern financier, and its development would wait another 20 years when permanent rail service arrived.
Read more about this topic: William H. Carlson
Famous quotes containing the words ocean and/or beach:
“I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”
—Isaac Newton (1642–1727)
“The seashore is a sort of neutral ground, a most advantageous point from which to contemplate this world. It is even a trivial place. The waves forever rolling to the land are too far-traveled and untamable to be familiar. Creeping along the endless beach amid the sun-squall and the foam, it occurs to us that we, too, are the product of sea-slime.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)