John D. Spreckels

John Diedrich Spreckels was born in Charleston, South Carolina, August 16th, 1853. He attended Oakland College and then studied chemistry and mechanical engineering at Polytechnic College in Hanover, Germany. He returned to California and began working for his father, Claus, Sr., who had grown extremely wealthy in the sugar business. Spreckels went to the Hawaiian Islands, where he worked in his father's sugar business. John D. Spreckels established his own shipping enterprise in 1880 and became very wealthy in his own right.

Spreckels married Lillie Siebein in October, and together they had four children. They first lived in Hawaii and then in San Francisco. Spreckels first visited San Diego in 1887 when his yacht Lurline needed to stock up on supplies. Impressed by the real estate boom then taking place (a boom that would, to his advantage, bust the following year), he invested in construction of a wharf and coal bunkers at the foot of Broadway.

The real estate bust enabled Spreckels to acquire control of the Coronado Beach Company, which included the Hotel Del Coronado and Coronado Tent City. Over the years Spreckels would continue to acquire many different companies, including streetcar lines and electric power companies.

Seeing a need to generate support for his development plans for San Diego, Spreckels purchased the San Diego Union newspaper in 1890 and the Tribune in 1901. At various times he owned all of North Island, the San Diego-Coronado Ferry System, Union-Tribune Publishing Co., San Diego Electric Railway, San Diego & Arizona Railway, and Belmont Park. He built several downtown buildings, including the Union Building in 1908, the Spreckels Theatre, the San Diego Hotel, and the Golden West Hotel.

Spreckels was president of several companies, including the Oceanic Steamship Company, operating a mail and passenger line to Hawaii and Australia, the Western Sugar Refining Company, the Coronado Water Company, the San Diego and Coronado Ferry Company, the San Diego and Coronado Transfer Company, the Pajaro Valley Railroad Company and the San Diego and Arizona Railway Company.

"Transportation determines the flow of population," said Spreckels, and throughout his ownership of the streetcar system he extended it from downtown to new areas where he owned land, such as Mission Beach, Pacific Beach and Normal Heights. He invested millions in the San Diego & Arizona Railroad, the "Impossible Railroad", which finally opened a rail link to the east in 1919, after 13 years under construction. Spreckels organized the Southern California Mountain Water Company, which built the Morena and the Upper and Lower Otay dams, the Dulzura conduit and the necessary pipeline to the city.

Spreckels contributed to the cultural life of the city by building the Spreckels Theatre, the first modern commercial playhouse west of the Mississippi. He gave generously to the fund to build the 1915 Panama-California Exposition. Together with his brother Adolph B. Spreckels, they built the Spreckels Organ Pavilion in Balboa Park, and gave it to the people of San Diego just before the opening of the 1915 Panama California Exposition. Ensuring the organ would be enjoyed, Spreckels paid the salaries of a resident organ tuner and of the organist for many years. Spreckels wanted the residents of San Diego to enjoy a weekly free organ concert. These free concerts are still held at 2p.m. every Sunday.

Despite his many business endeavors in San Diego, it was not until 1908 that Spreckels would establish a permanent residence in San Diego. Speckels and his family were deeply affected by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Two years after the quake he would move his family into a Coronado mansion on Glorietta Boulevard. The mansion survives today as the Glorietta Bay Inn.

John D. Spreckels was an active Freemason, and lived up to the philanthropic tenets of Freemasonry. In addition to the funding of the organ pavilion, his will left $100,000 to Mercy Hospital. At the same time a house in San Diego could be purchased for approximately $5,000.

Spreckels died in San Diego on June 7, 1926. The following year a group of Freemasons created John D. Spreckels Lodge #657 as a lasting tribute to a man who played an important role in the development of San Diego.
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