Del Mar

In 1880 the California Southern Railroad was formed to connect San Diego to the national rail network, and Del Mar lay along the planned route. Theodore M. Loop, a railroad official from New York, first settled here in 1882 with his wife Ella. He thought it was the most attractive place on the entire coast. Ella gave the site its name, inspired by a poem by Bayard Taylor. Instead of moving on when the railroad was finished, Loop stayed.

In 1885 Loop met Colonel Jacob Taylor, a rich rancher who owned Rancho Santa Maria de Los Peñasquitos. Taylor changed his plans after seeing the area, bought 338 acres from Enoch Talbert, and meant to build a seaside resort for the rich and famous. He ran the first telephone line between Del Mar and Peñasquitos so he could manage his ranch from the coast. By 1888 there was a village of about 25 homes, with what is now 10th Street as its main road. The city also built the first dedicated school for the area, which ended the practice of teaching students in barns.

Then it all went wrong. Taylor's hotel, Casa del Mar, burned to the ground the following year in a kitchen fire. Floods had damaged roads, bridges and railroad tracks and left Del Mar isolated. San Diego's population fell by half from its 1887 peak by 1890. Taylor lost his ranch in the recession and left California. The town closed the century with fewer than a hundred people.

In 1905 the South Coast Land Company bought all of Taylor's land. It hired Ed Fletcher, who later became a state senator, to subdivide it and lay out roads. It also hired John C. Austin, one of Los Angeles' most prominent architects, to revive the hotel site. The result was the Stratford Inn, finished around 1910. Austin was from Oxfordshire, England, near Shakespeare's home of Stratford-upon-Avon, and the name and the Tudor Revival style were meant to evoke that world. The company wanted to attract Hollywood silent film stars, and around a quarter of silent films were adaptations of Shakespeare. The hotel and town quickly became a favorite of Hollywood.

Del Mar's first retail center, now called Stratford Square, was built in 1927 across the street in the same style. More Tudor homes and about a dozen commercial buildings followed, and they became a distinctive feature of Old Del Mar. They stood out against the Spanish Colonial Revival style that dominated the region. The Los Angeles Times sports editor Pawl Lowry said at the close of the silent film era that Del Mar had class written all over it.

In the 1920s the United States Navy set up an emergency use airfield in Del Mar. The Great Depression stopped home building for a while. In 1933 James E. Franks and Ed Fletcher suggested that the land next to the airfield, which held a failing golf course and riding stable, become a permanent home for the San Diego County Fair. A county agricultural district won a state grant to buy it, and the first fair was held in Del Mar in 1936. William Quigley then asked Bing Crosby to back a horse racing track on the site. Crosby agreed and brought in friends from Hollywood, and the Del Mar Race Track opened the following year. A line from a song Crosby recorded to play there, where the turf meets the surf, became the town's slogan.

The racing crowds helped the neighboring airfield grow, and it became Del Mar Municipal Airport in 1938. During World War II it became a Naval Auxiliary Air Facility for blimps. Nearby grounds made parts for Boeing B-17 bombers, anti-aircraft batteries hid in eucalyptus groves, and the hotel housed military personnel. The Marine Corps from Camp Pendleton trained on the beaches. After the war the Navy facility was decommissioned and the property passed to Del Mar for $1.00. The airport shut down in 1959, because Interstate 5 was to be built through its land, and McClellan-Palomar Airport in Carlsbad replaced it.

Del Mar incorporated in 1959, largely to stop high rises from being built along the coast, as had happened in La Jolla after it became part of the City of San Diego. Incorporation let the city manage itself, keep its small town character and protect the views of existing homeowners. Opponents worried about the cost of separate city services. A new vote was forced in 1961, and it passed by an even larger margin.

One side effect remains. Only part of what was then Del Mar became the city, so Del Mar postal addresses do not match the city boundaries and can refer to two separate cities. San Diego called its part Del Mar Heights, but the old addresses never changed.

The San Diego Freeway opened in 1963, and all of Interstate 5 was done in 1966. Traffic between Los Angeles and San Diego could now skip Del Mar, and together with the airport closing that caused trouble for the business district. The Hotel Del Mar closed in 1963. The years that followed were sometimes called the Open Spaces Decade. A campaign that began in 1964 to expand Torrey Pines State Park became the Torrey Pines Natural Reserve Extension in 1970, and the same movement led to Sea Grove Park.

Del Mar is one of only two places where the Torrey pine grows naturally. It is the rarest pine in the United States, and the endangered species has just two populations, one in Del Mar and one on Santa Rosa Island. The Soledad Valley at the south end of Del Mar splits one colony into two parts. The tree is specially protected in the city and is an unofficial symbol of the area. A Torrey pine branch is part of the city logo, and the city has used the tree in public art.

The Del Mar Fairgrounds are the center of activity. The San Diego County Fair runs from June to early July, and live horse racing comes in the summer and now the fall. When there is no live racing, the Surfside Race Place satellite wagering facility stays open. The Holiday of Lights is held at the fairgrounds in December, and the Del Mar Antiques + Art + Design Show has been held there three times a year for over 50 years. The Surf Dog Surf-a-Thon, a one-day event for surfing dogs, runs in September.

Torrey Pines State Beach and the Powerhouse Community Center are also here. The North Beach area, from 29th Street to the Solana Beach border, is also known as Dog Beach. Del Mar Plaza, a lifestyle center on the cliffs over the Pacific, has three levels opening onto ocean-view balconies and 22 stores. Del Mar is the first surfing location mentioned in the 1963 Beach Boys song Surfin' U.S.A. The southern half of the city has one and a half miles of coast with no legal beach access, and offshore reefs and wave patterns make it some of the best surfing in San Diego County.

The bluffs along the south beach collapse. The Surf Line railroad tracks run next to coastal bluffs about 40 feet above the beach for 1.7 miles. In September 2020 the North County Transit District drove steel beams into the beach at the base of the bluffs to stabilize them for 20 or 30 years. The city council, the California Coastal Commission and residents opposed the district's plan to put up a chain-link fence to stop people crossing the tracks to reach the beach. In 2019 the city declined to plan a managed retreat from the water, against the Coastal Commission's advice, and chose seawalls and beach nourishment instead.

On August 16, 2020, the Coastal Commission stressed that the rail line should move inland. The San Diego Association of Governments is doing a $3 million study on relocating it, and a tunnel under Del Mar that would cost more than $3 billion is being considered.

Del Mar is just off Interstate 5. The old Del Mar station served the Santa Fe Surf Line and Amtrak from the early 1900s until it closed in 1995, when the new Solana Beach station opened two miles north. That station now has Coaster commuter rail and Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner. The corridor is the second busiest passenger rail corridor in the United States. The North County Transit District runs BREEZE buses, including an hourly service between Oceanside and La Jolla.

The Del Mar Union School District runs eight K to 8 schools. High school education comes from the San Dieguito Union High School District. A city council of five members runs Del Mar, and each year the members choose a new mayor from among themselves.