Thomas Barklow - Biography - Letters to Southern Coos County American

TWO MORE LETTERS FROM UNCLE TOMMY - PART 2

Point Loma, San Diego, California

221 W. Dryden Street, Glendale, California - January 28, 1925 –

Dear American Readers: A few more lines from San Diego, California may be of interest to many of your readers.

Ballast Point Light House from Point Loma

Many have read of Point Loma, the point of the old Spanish lighthouse. We visited this place with much interest. As we were climbing the winding stairs, and reached the top, and stepped out on the platform surrounded by the heavy gas pipe for a bannister [sic; banister], we let our minds go back to the days when the building was placed here. How many marines have found their way by this light! Point Loma stands out in the ocean a long distance and is about 600 feet in height. It gives a wonderful view of San Diego to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west.

View from Hawthorne Inn, San Diego, California, 1900 looking at Point Loma

The old Spanish lighthouse is abandoned and a new one built out farther on the point of Point Loma.

There is another lighthouse farther back in the harbor.

A short distance away a cemetery where the soldiers who were blown up on the Bennington vessel were buried. In fact, no one but soldiers have yet been buried there, I believe. There were 50 who lost their lives in this explosion. There is a beautiful monument erected there, 60 feet high, in honor of these soldiers.

Bennington Monument, Pt. Loma, San Diego, California

Devil's Pot, Sunset Cliffs, San Diego, California

From there we visited the caves at Sunset Cliffs. Among the curious things found here was a natural bridge and the Devils’ pot. There are caves are that place but when the tide is in one would sooner be up on the surface. Another wonder of nature is the arched rock near the lighthouse.

Tent City, Coronado Island, California

We ate dinner in the Coronado tent city. This place has hundreds of small tent houses built for the convenience of campers. Some of them rent for $75.00 per month. Then we drove and walked around the Coronado hotel, which is of enormous size, has over 800 rooms, and is a resort for the millionaires and other moneyed men.

Hotel Del Coronado, Garden Court, Coronado Island, California

The building is built in a circle. Go through the house and you will come to a garden encircled by the hotel, where there are trees, flowers, shrubs, and a bird house with such beautiful birds. Everything has been done that could be to beautify the place. Spreckles, who built the hotel, owns much property in southern California.

A little boy was viewing the scenery and he asked his mother who owned the houses he was looking at, and she said Spreckles. Another house and again, Spreckles owned it. Then he came to the ocean and when he asked who owned that big water she answered “God owned it.” The little fellow looked up and asked “When did Mr. Spreckles give it to God?”

I will have to tell you more about this great city later.

Uncle Tommy