1900

City of San Diego population is 17,700. San Diego County population is 35,090.

1900

John D. Spreckels opens Tent City, just south of the Hotel del Coronado. Spreckels, now owner of the Del, closes the hotel for renovations from June to December of 1900, and guests are put up in tents on the beach. The tents remain and Tent City becomes a popular summer resort until it is finally closed in 1939.

1901

Irving J. Gill is appointed to California's first State Architectural Board, and in 1903, is asked to serve on the Hotel Commission to plan the U.S. Grant Hotel in downtown San Diego.

1902

San Diego physician Fred Baker invites W.E. Ritter to establish his marine laboratory in San Diego.

1903

University of California Zoology Professor William E. Ritter, supported by Ellen Browning Scripps, her brother E.W. Scripps and Homer Peters, form the Marine Biological Association of San Diego, later to become the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

1903

E.S. Babcock, Manager of the Hotel del Coronado writes UC President Wheeler offering the use of the hotel's boathouse as a laboratory during the summer.

1905

The Salton Sea is formed between 1905 and 1907, when the Colorado River breaks out of a canal dug to carry irrigation water to the Imperial Valley, pouring into the ancient, dry Salton Basin seabed that was most recently occupied by Lake Cahuilla until about 300 years ago.

1906

E.W. Scripps gives his yacht LOMA to the Marine Biological Association to be used as a research vessel.

1906

Great Earthquake of 8.25 magnitude hits San Francisco. Seven hundred persons die in one of the greatest earthquakes ever to hit California. Damage increased perhaps tenfold by raging fires. Total damage estimated at over $500 million.

1906

The E.W. Scripps yacht, LOMA, is wrecked near the lighthouse on Point Loma.

1907

A contract is signed with San Diego shipbuilder Lawrence Jensen for the construction of a new Scripps research vessel.

1907

At the insistence of E.W. Scripps, the Marine Biological Association purchases Pueblo Lot 1298, a tract of 170 acres near Long Beach in La Jolla, at an auction sale held on the steps of City Hall for $1000. San Diego land speculators agree not to bid against the Association. True value of the land estimated at $30-50,000.

1907

The Scripps R/V ALEXANDER AGASSIZ is launched from the Jensen shipyard.

1907

The "little green laboratory at the cove," the wooden building housing the marine biological laboratory at La Jolla is formally dedicated.

1907

Development of Presidio Park begins; Marston, Spreckels, Scripps and other investors begin buying Presidio property to preserve as a park.

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