San Diego, known for its perfect weather, naval ties and landmarks like the San Diego Zoo and Balboa Park, has a history as incredible as its stunning shoreline. In this collection of articles from his San Diego Union-Tribune column "The Way We Were," Richard W. Crawford recounts stories from the city's early history that once splashed across the headlines. Read about Ruth Alexander's aviation feats, the water pipeline carved from Humboldt County redwoods, the jailbreak of a man facing ten years in San Quentin for cow theft, a visit from escape artist Harry Houdini and the Purity League's closure of the Stingaree red-light district. These stories highlight San Diego's progress from a humble frontier port to the stylish city it is today.
Richard Crawford is the supervisor of Special Collections at the San Diego Public Library. He is the former archives director at the San Diego Historical Society, where he also edited the Journal of San Diego History for nine years. Born in Long Beach in 1953, he has been a San Diegan since 1973. He has degrees in history (San Diego State University) and library science (San Jose State University). In his thirty-year career as a historian and archivist, he has written extensively on local history, including the book Stranger Than Fiction: Vignettes of San Diego History (1995) and over 170 articles for the San Diego Union-Tribune that provide the content for The Way We Were in San Diego.