Lost PB Street names

Whatever Happened to Izard Street? Pacific Beach and Its Street Names

The majority of Pacific Beach streets have had more than one name. It seems as if, through the years, the city fathers couldn’t make up their minds. But the changes were not born of caprice; there were good reasons. To understand the reasons, we must take a look at the history of Pacific Beach as a community within the limits of the City of San Diego.

Like many other areas of the city, Pacific Beach was conceived and born during that period of local insanity known as the Boom of the ‘Eighties. Two transcontinental railroads to Southern California having been finished, land developers and speculators moved in. The first subdivision map of Pacific Beach was platted and the land put on the market in October, 1887, by the Pacific Beach Company. Promoters of the new subdivision were D. C. Reed, A. G. Gassen, Charles W. Pauley, R. A. Thomas and O. S. Hubbell, who “cleared away the grainfields, pitched a tent, mapped out the lots, hired an auctioneer and started to work.” Curiously enough, the original map was not filed with the County Recorder until January 2, 1892, a fact which would have a later bearing on some street names.

Mission Bay was False Bay; Mission Boulevard was First Street and later Allison; Garnet Avenue was College Avene (for a college that failed); Diamond was Alabama; Agate was called Illinois; Fanuel is a misspelling of Faneuil, and was formerly 6th; Everts is a misspelling of Evarts, formerly 5th street; Ingraham was originally Broadway, became Izard, then Broadway. It’s a fun read if you know PB at all.