Gaslamp Quarter Historic Gateway: The Victorian Metropolis

Why is it significant?

Stand beneath the glowing neon archway spanning Fifth Avenue at L Street that proudly proclaims: Gaslamp Quarter - The Historic Heart of San Diego. Look down the avenue lined with flickering replica gas lamps and ornate late nineteenth-century brick facades with bay windows and cast-iron filigree.

Key Facts

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Stand beneath the glowing neon archway spanning Fifth Avenue at L Street that proudly proclaims: Gaslamp Quarter - The Historic Heart of San Diego. Look down the avenue lined with flickering replica gas lamps and ornate late nineteenth-century brick facades with bay windows and cast-iron filigree. In eighteen sixty-seven, visionary real estate promoter Alonzo Horton stepped ashore and purchased eight hundred acres of coastal scrubland for about thirty-three cents an acre, declaring: I thought San Diego must be a heaven on earth, but why are people living three miles from the water? Horton laid out New Town directly on San Diego Bay, creating the bustling commercial center you see today. During the late nineteenth century, this neighborhood was infamous as the Stingaree, a wild red-light district crowded with one hundred and twenty saloons, opium dens, and gambling halls where unwary sailors were proverbially stung as easily as stepped-on stingrays. Walk up Fifth Avenue to Island Avenue toward the William Heath Davis House.