style
Canfield-Wright House , founded in 1937. In 1880, the
California Southern Railroad was formed to connect San Diego to the national rail network and Del Mar was along the planned route. It was first settled in 1882 by Theodore M. Loop, a railroad official from New York, and his wife Ella. Loop thought the area was "the most attractive place on the entire coast". Ella gave the site its name, inspired by
Bayard Taylor's poem "The Fight of Paso del Mar". Instead of moving on when the railroad was completed, Loop decided he wanted to stay. In 1885, Loop met Colonel Jacob Taylor and proposed building a town together. Taylor was a prosperous rancher that had come to the region with his family. He had bought
Rancho Santa Maria de Los Peñasquitos and intended to stay there. On seeing the beauty and development potential of the Del Mar area, he changed his plans. He purchased of land from Enoch Talbert, with visions of building a seaside resort for the rich and famous. He installed the first telephone line between Del Mar and Peñasquitos so he could manage his ranch while living on the coast and developing his resort. By 1888, there was a village of about 25 homes with what is now 10th Street as its main corridor. The city built the first dedicated school for the surrounding sparsely populated area, ending the practice of students being taught in barns. The town's development suffered a major setback when Taylor's hotel "Casa del Mar" burned to the ground due to a kitchen fire the following year. Flooding in Southern California had damaged roads, bridges, and railroad tracks causing widespread devastation and leaving Del Mar isolated. San Diego's population fell in half from its 1887 peak by 1890. Despite Taylor's initial pledge to rebuild, he was not only unable to complete the project, he lost his ranch in the subsequent recession and left California. Development stalled and the city closed the century with a population of less than a hundred people. In 1905, the South Coast Land Company acquired all of Taylor's land. They hired
Ed Fletcher, who later became a State Senator, to subdivide the land and lay out a road system. They hired
John C. Austin, one of Los Angeles' most prominent architects, to revive Taylor's hotel site for their first building in Del Mar. The hotel site became the Stratford Inn and was completed around 1910. Austin was from
Oxfordshire,
England near
William Shakespeare's home of
Stratford-upon-Avon. The hotel name and its
Tudor Revival architecture style were meant to evoke Shakespeare's home and era. style home by Sea Grove Park Shakespeare was important to the Hollywood silent film stars the South Coast Land Company wanted to attract. Around a quarter of silent films were adaptations of Shakespeare's work. The hotel and town quickly became a favorite of Hollywood stars. Del Mar's first retail center, now called Stratford Square, was built in 1927 across the street using a similar style. Additional Tudor style homes and around a dozen commercial buildings were built and it became a unique and distinctive feature of Old Del Mar. It contrasted with the dominant style of the region, which had become
Spanish Colonial Revival. The style had started replacing others after being featured at the
Panama–California Exposition as suited to the regional climate. At close of the silent film era, Los Angeles Times Sports editor Pawl Lowry observed that, "Del Mar has class written all over it ... Del Mar has the Spanish touch of Old California, the artistic, aristocratic air of the day of the Dons. The buildings are in keeping from stern to stern." The
United States Navy established an emergency use airfield in Del Mar in the 1920s. Del Mar was not unaffected by the Great Depression of the 1930s, with home building temporarily coming to a halt. In 1933, James E. Franks and
Ed Fletcher suggested the land next to the airfield be turned into a permanent home for the
San Diego County Fair. It had a golf course and riding stable that were failing financially, as leisure spending greatly declined during the depression. A county agricultural district was able to secure a state grant to purchase the land and the first fair was held in Del Mar in 1936.
William Quigley approached
Bing Crosby with a proposal to build a horse racing track on site. Crosby agreed and was able to convince many friends and figures from Hollywood to join them on the project. The Del Mar Race Track opened the following year. A line from a song he recorded to play at the race track, "where the turf meets the surf" became a slogan of Del Mar. With the influx of racing patrons, the neighboring airfield expanded and became Del Mar Municipal Airport in 1938. The facility was turned into a
Naval Auxiliary Air Facility for
blimps at Del Mar during
World War II. Nearby grounds were also used to manufacture parts for
Boeing B-17 Bombers. Anti-aircraft batteries were hidden in Eucalyptus groves with fortified positions built into the hillside. The Stratford Inn, renamed the Hotel Del Mar in the 1920s, was used to house military personnel. A pier from 1908, which was later demolished, was used to train thousands of
United States Army recruits.
United States Marine Corps from
Camp Pendleton trained on the beaches. After the war, the Navy facility was decommissioned. The Naval property was transferred to Del Mar for a symbolic $1.00. It was later decided to build a new section of the
Interstate 5 Highway through land used by the Del Mar Municipal airport. It shutdown in 1959 and was replaced by the Carlsbad
McClellan–Palomar Airport. The city incorporated in 1959. A significant motivation for the incorporation was to prevent high rises being built along the coast as had happened in
La Jolla when it became part of the
City of San Diego. Incorporation meant the city could manage itself, preserve its small town character, and protect the views of existing homeowners. The residents of higher areas of what was then referred to as Del Mar did not have the same degree of interest in being separate from the City of San Diego as their views were not at risk, and there was not the same concern that high rises would be built away from the coast. Opponents of incorporation were concerned over the costs of providing separate city service, which would thereby create an excessive tax burden. A re-vote on incorporation was forced in 1961, but it passed by an even larger margin than the initial vote. Since only a portion of what was then Del Mar incorporated, it did not include all of the areas that were served by the Del Mar post office. Del Mar postal addresses do not match the incorporated city boundaries and can refer to two separate cities. Del Mar is one of only a few such areas in California. San Diego called the area of Del Mar it incorporated
Del Mar Heights, but the old addresses never changed from Del Mar. from the Extension The San Diego Freeway opened in 1963 and the entire Interstate 5 was completed in 1966. This allowed vehicle traffic between Los Angeles and San Diego to bypass Del Mar. Along with prior closure of the Del Mar Airport, this led to temporary difficulties for the city business district. The Hotel Del Mar closed in 1963. The following years were sometimes known at the Open Spaces Decade. From 1964, there was campaign to expand the Torrey Pines State Park, later the
Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve, into land that then included part of Del Mar. This became the Torrey Pines Natural Reserve Extension in 1970. The Torrey Pine became a specially protected tree in Del Mar and an unofficial symbol of the area. The Torrey pine branch with its needle-like leaves are used as part of the city logo. The tree has also been used by the city in public art. The movement to preserve open spaces and prevent excessive development also led to the establishment of Sea Grove Park. Much of the population is on the coast and nearby
bluff which are vulnerable to sea level rise caused by climate change. In 2019, the city refused to develop a
managed retreat strategy for moving infrastructure and population centers from the water. Coastal erosion eats away at the bluffs each year. The
North County Transit District drove steel beams into the beach at the base of the bluffs in September 2020 to stabilize the face of the bluffs for 20 or 30 years. The city wanted to require the transit agency to cover the shotcrete wall on the bluff with natural soil and native plantings. The city council, the
California Coastal Commission, and residents have opposed the district's plans to install a chain-link fence that would stop pedestrians from crossing the tracks to get to the beach. The district considered this to be a safety issue as trespassers along the right-of-way have been hit by trains. This mile-and-a-half stretch (2.4 km) along the southern half of the city does not have legal access to the beach. Due to offshore reefs and wave patterns, this section has some of the best surfing in San Diego County. ==Geography==