History

Early promotional ad for Rolando, July 1926

A brief history of Rolando posted with permission of the author James Newland of the College Neihborhood Foundation.

As time allows I will add illustrations, old advertisements, and photos to this post.

A brief history of Rolando, a community of San Diego California - By Jim D. Newland

The Early Years (1771-1925)

(Pre-Rolando)

Mission San Diego de Alcala by: Allan Ferguson

The land known today as Rolando was originally part of the Spanish and Mexican Period Mission San Diego de Alcala rancho lands. The area around Rolando was primarily used for grazing of mission livestock. The Mission San Diego de Alcala was seclarized in 1834 and in 1846 the Ex-Mission Rancho was granted to Don Santiago Arguello. Arguello was a former commandant of the San Diego presidio and a civic leader of the Hispanic Era. After Alta California became part of the United States, Arguello’s heirs attempted to confirm the Ex-Mission Rancho land grant in the U.S. courts. Due to a onerous legal system and Arguello’s death without a will in 1862, the property title was not fully settled or the lands finally partitioned until 1885.

The first attempt at subdividing the area around Rolando occurred in 1887 during the Great Land Boom in Southern California. The San Diego Flume Company was the developer. The Flume Company had plans to construct a wooden water flume from Cuyamaca Lake to the arid “mesa top” lands of today’s La Mesa, Lemon Grove, and East San Diego. Named La Mesa Colony, this “country” area (being several miles east of the then city limits—today’s I-805) was subdivided into large farm lots (5 to 20 acres). A townsite called “La Mesa” was also platted with today’s 70th and El Cajon Boulevard at its center. However, the Great Land Boom in San Diego died out a year later and only a few small farms were built out along the old Cajon Road (later to become State Route 12 in 1913 and after 1926, U.S. Highway 80).

By the mid-1890s the name La Mesa moved east to the village growing around the railroad station at “Allison” or La Mesa Springs. The old Colony townsite area, and its single-room school community of a few hundred residents was dubbed “La Mesa Heights,” a name it held into the 1940s. Most of the farmers of La Mesa Heights would earn their livings growing citrus crops and poultry.

Rolando is Born (1926-1929)

By the mid-1920s San Diego and Southern California were experiencing another era of rapid growth. San Diego’s trolley system was extended east along University and Adams Avenues and new suburban subdivisions would follow. Such small rural/suburban communities as East San Diego, La Mesa, and El Cajon would be incorporated during this period. The interest in “east end” communities such as Normal Heights, Kensington, Teralta, and City Heights was then evident, especially when East San Diego was annexed into the City of San Diego in 1923.

In 1925 it was announced that University Avenue would be graded and paved from the end of the streetcar line at Euclid Avenue out to La Mesa. This culminated several years of work by civic groups and leaders from both East San Diego and La Mesa. It also marked a major change in suburban development to areas beyond the reach of streetcar lines because of the mass production and popularity of the automobile. Areas previously beyond reach of streetcar lines were now easier to develop and sell.

For rural La Mesa Heights, the “University Extension” interested several developers from the Los Angeles area to the development potential. Led by Los Angeles real estate men, Chant Shannon and J. S. Waybright, and local investors such as La Mesa’s Joseph Levikow, a newly formed development company called the New University Syndicate purchased 530 acres of land between El Cajon Boulevard (now U.S. 80) and University Avenue and south toward Lemon Grove.

Their first advertisement was published on June 20, 1926. The sales organization announced a free barbecue and great festivities the following Saturday. Over 8,000 were reported to have attended. This was the first of many promotions to sell the:

“City of Rolando.”

San Diego’s Largest Residential Project

The Only Subdivision on Two Main Highways -

“Where you will love to live!”

Over the next year weekly ads and articles would note the latest improvement or sales news about Rolando. These ads would abruptly stop in July 1927. Only a single ad in September 1927 announced the plans to finish paving Units 4 and 5. The drop off in publicity only signaled upcoming troubles.

“The City of Rolando” (1926-27)

“Where You Will Love to Live”

The original plans were to create an exclusive suburban community similar in style and prestige with other contemporary developing San Diego neighborhoods such as Point Loma, La Jolla, Pacific Beach, and Kensington.

In order to ensure an exclusive community, the New University Syndicate hired Theodore Meier, a Los Angeles landscape architect, to survey and subdivide their 530 acres into five subdivision units between El Cajon and University Avenues. The first three were filed with the County in the Autumn of 1926. The last two in mid-1927. The subdivisions were to have the latest in “exclusive neighborhood” suburban amenities: curved asphalt-paved streets; water, gas & electric hookups, ornamental street lamps, concrete sidewalks, block to block public walkways, and protective zoning.

“All Major Eastward Growth Lies Through Rolando”

Rolando’s exclusive design along with its climate, soil, and location were extensively used to promote the development. It would be noted that Rolando would be the first of many new developments along the two highways, and that it might become its own city.

The syndicate noted that:

Rolando was to be to San Diego,

what Hollywood was to Los Angeles

(Hollywood had a very positive reputation then)

During the next year the Rolando Sales Organization placed weekly advertisements in an attempt to “sell” Rolando. (Named after the rolling topography of the land—with a popular 1920s “Spanish-style” linguistic twist). Various promotions including flamenco dancers, barbecues and free dinners, opera singers, ice cream socials, investment lecturers, tent pavilions, and even skydivers were used to entice people to visit, buy, and build in Rolando.

The Sales organization also attempted to keep up with their competition in nearby Kensington-Talmadge. The Talmadge developers had named their subdivision after the famous silent-movie stars the Talmadge sisters, and had all three including Natalie Talmadge’s movie star husband Buster Keaton make several promotional appearances in early 1926. Not to be outdone, in November 1926, the Rolando organization got local Savoy Theater star Theodora Warfield to announce that she would be building a home and living in Rolando (No references are known that confirm any of these celebrities actually living in either subdivision—But it makes for great local lore!).

Build It and They Will Come,

or Will They?

Grading for Units 1, 2, and 3 started in early 1927. By the Summer of 1927 the sidewalks, lights and roads were in place in Units 1 and 2. By June 1927 Unit 3 was being paved and the first few houses were started along Rolando Boulevard and Campo Drive (now Aragon). By the end of 1928 the first two contractors, W. A. McIntyre and Wesley Hummon had constructed roughly a dozen houses. Typical of 1920s San Diego and Southern California, all but one of the houses were designed in Spanish Colonial Revival style (the other was Tudor Revival). In September 1927 Units 4 and 5 were dedicated as sales of local San Diego real estate were booming.

But the development was far from full. Although advertisements announced thousands of dollars in lot sales and proposed houses, the development was not filling-in. Competition from developments in Point Loma and La Jolla, and especially Kensington Heights, along with Rolando’s “rural” location out away from the City and its established bus and trolley lines were hampering development. Late in 1927 the New University Syndicate was looking for a way out. By January 1928 a new investor would purchase the fledgling development.

George Blake’s Rolando

“The Worlds’ Master Development”

(January - April 1928)

Michigan businessman George Blake along with several other eastern investors purchased the Rolando property away from the New University Syndicate in late 1927. His interest in transportation improvements is illustrated in Blake’s advertisements, with their focus on automobiles and airplanes.

Sales still lagged however. In early 1928, Blake’s associates made what would be their last effort to save their new investment.

San Diego State College was looking to move to a new location after passage of the “Greater San Diego State Teacher College Act” in 1925. After a new sites in Balboa Park (1926) and Encanto (1927) had been rejected by voters, the University’s search committee looked to the eastern edge of the city. Blake had landscape architect Theodore Meier design a plan for a college campus that would have been located south of University Avenue in today’s Rolando Park neighborhood. In April 1928 they publicly offered the site to the College.

However, two months later San Diego State accepted an offer for the current site on Mission Palisades (now Montezuma Mesa) from the Bell-Lloyd Investment Company of Los Angeles (developers of the exclusive Bell Aire and Pacific Palisades areas). Bell-Lloyd was also promoting Kensington Heights and Talmadge at the time—Rolando’s largest East End rivals as well as their own major development that would include golf courses, polo fields, and houses surrounding the future Montezuma Mesa.

With the loss of the College site, George Blake quickly sold his interest in Rolando. No more ads were forthcoming after April 1928 for the short-lived “Worlds’ Master Development”.

One More Try

The Rolando City Holding Company &

“The New City of Rolando”

(June - December 1928)

Next a group of Rolando property owners and other local San Diego businessmen attempted to salvage the struggling development. In June 1928 they purchased the property and formed the Rolando City Holding Company.

Rumors of trouble must already have been circulating. In December 1928 the Rolando Holding Company took out a series of ads announcing “The New City of Rolando.” The first ad noted the hiring of former Kensington Heights sales manager Charles Patrick and his promise that no Mattoon Act Bonds had been used to develop Rolando. Unfortunately, this was not wholly true. The use of the soon-to-be infamous Mattoon Act bonds to underwrite the subdivision improvements at Rolando would haunt the development for almost a decade. In addition to these bonds, tax indebitedness to the local water district would double the troubles.

After the ads of December 1928, Rolando City Holding Company published no more ads and development stopped.

Rolando in the 1930s

The Mattoon Act: A “Pyramiding” Development Problem

Although neighborhoods such as Point Loma and Kensington had filled in rapidly during 1927 and 1928, Rolando did not. The dozen or so houses that had been constructed by 1928 sat alone in the rural suburb well into the late 1930s.

Several factors were the cause. Although San Diego’s population would double during the 1920s real estate speculators had subdivided far more land than there was demand. By 1928 San Diego’s real estate boom of the mid-1920s began to slow. With the onset of the Great Depression in 1929-30 it came to a crawl.

Next, and most important was the Mattoon Act. The Mattoon Act was a piece of legislation designed to fund improvements such as roads, lights, sidewalks, etc. for established subdivisions through bond sales linked to special tax assessment districts.

Unfortunately, this legislation became popular with developers of new, vacant property to be sold on speculation—such as the Rolando syndicate who used the Act to finance the development’s improvements.

However, the Mattoon Act was not designed for improving new, undeveloped land. It called for owners of improved property to carry any unpaid tax payment burden for undeveloped lots in the overall district. Unpaid assessment taxes and interest penalties would then “pyramid” and rollover to those in the District on improved lots.

This is not a problem if all the property in a district has owners that pay for the improvements. In a fully improved district might have a few delinquent or vacant parcels to be made up by the rest of the property owners. However in a new district such as Rolando where there were hundreds of annually assessed parcels, but only a dozen new owners to carry the burden, the bond indebtedness continued to multiply annually. Any new owner into the district would then have to take on a share of that indebtedness. Obviously, this was not good for sales!

By 1931 the delinquent bond assessments would be ten times the value of the land.

Burn the Bonds!

Tax payers and County officials soon realized the consequences of the Mattoon Act. The County had numerous districts such as Rolando that were liable to be lost to the State for delinquent taxes. By 1933, 17% of the County’s properties were delinquent.

Rolando had improvements (houses) assessed at only $31,651, but a bond and tax liability of $330,794 for 1933. By 1936 the pyramiding assessments had reached an absurd level. Rolando Units 4 and 5 alone called for a rate of $244,835.37 on each $100 evaluation!

The results of the tax and bond indebtedness not only kept out any new development for areas like Rolando but also took the properties off the County tax rolls.

County and State officials worked on a settlement plan. In October 1935 a $2.6 million County Bond was passed by the voters to help purchase the estimated $14 million in outstanding Mattoon Act bonds.

In early 1938, the settlement for purchase of the delinquent bonds and re-assessment of many Districts, including the Rolando properties was nearing.

On April 26, 1938 the El Cajon Boulevard Civic Association sponsored a “Bond Burning” celebration at the corner of 67th and El Cajon Blvd. Over $40,000 of purchased Cajon Avenue District bonds were burned in a “bon-d fire.” The event was attended by Katherine Hunter, Miss El Cajon Boulevard of 1938, and the Hoover High Marching Band. Soon after, plans to clear all debt for Rolando were underway.

Rolando Village (1939-1944)

The Re-Birth of Rolando

“Designed for Better Living”

In early 1939 the County completed the final liquidation of the Mattoon Act bonds for Rolando Units 1 to 5. The final buyout totaling $685,000. (The bond holders reportedly settled for a buyout of $.15 on the dollar).

A new syndicate of realtors and builders known as the Rolando Village Company were now ready to sell and develop the 654 vacant lots of the Rolando Unit subdivisions. On March 26, 1939 the first open house was announced. Local real estate brokers Joseph Levikow, Ben B. Margolis, and Harry B. Arthur organized the new company and started the sales campaign. The Company advertisements noted that the newly named Rolando Village provided all the amenities of the City, without the city taxes!

It also boasted that the high altitude (compared to the beach I guess) offered the healthiest climate with a maximum of sunshine and minimum of damp and fog (this sales concept was also used by Kensington and Talmadge promoters in the 1920s)

The location near the new State College campus and being just twenty minutes drive from downtown along the Boulevard were also noted as prime examples of why Rolando Village was the perfect site for a new home.

Meeting the Demand

Pre-War Growth (1939-41)

Whereas the Rolando Organization in the 1920s hit at the wrong time, the Rolando Village Company came about at the right time.

San Diego was coming out of the Depression and its growing aircraft industry was just starting to fly.

Consolidated Aircraft, the largest employer in town was about to get several huge contracts for the Army and Navy that would triple their operations and employees in less than a year. The Rolando Village Company would run regular ads in their monthly company magazine about Rolando home sites up through the War Years.

By August 1939 40 houses had been built in Rolando’s Unit 1 with 18 more under construction. Unit 2 had been open only two weeks and had 68 lots sold. One year later the total of new houses would number 192 with 30 more under construction.

The rapid construction pace would continue up to the start of World War II in December 1941, slowing due to limitations on materials during wartime. By that time the majority of Units 1, 2, & 3 were full.

Creating the Place:

Architectural Style and Design (1939-1945)

Unlike today’s subdivisions where you have several model home plans to choose from in a development, Rolando Village’s pre-war subdivision provided you with more choices. The Company worked in concert with several of the largest and most well-known home builders in the City. They would either sell lots to these selected developers or sell lots to home buyers who could then pick from the “preferred” list of contractors, or choose their own contractor.

Levikow, Margolis, and Arthur looked to continue the concept of an exclusive suburban development for Rolando Village. The Village Company noted that the development was still “Architecturally Restricted.” This was a typical selling point for exclusive subdivisions to help ensure uniform value throughout the tract. Basically, it meant that the owner needed to spend a minimum amount on the construction of their house.

The largest of the development companies to build homes in Rolando was the A. L. and A. E. Dennstedt Company. Other companies associated with Rolando Village Company that built homes in Rolando included: Brock and Brady Co.; The Original Dennstedt Co.; Hayes and Jackson; V.R. Houston; Jenkins Construction Co.; Chris Cosgrove; Donald McKillup; Edward Caballero; Tifal and King; and John Weiss. (Just to name a few).

The Rolando Village Company hired the noted San Diego architectural firm of Jackson and Hamill to “supervise this important detail.” However, they noted that no limitation of types or designs would be established beyond “attractive architecture in harmony with homes already constructed.”

Unlike many subdivisions built-up during the 1920s such as Kensington and Point Loma, the exclusiveness of building in mostly Spanish Colonial style was waning. Interest in other “minimal traditional” styles such as Colonial, Cape Cod, Tudor, French-Norman, Modern, and California Ranch were gaining popularity. Therefore, although most of the Rolando houses from 1927-28 are Spanish Colonial, the pre-war houses are of the more eclectic and varied small house “revival styles.”

During the 1939 to 1941 period many of the model houses of Rolando were featured in San Diego Union Home-Section articles. These eclectic revival style houses would be the basis of Rolando Village’s unique historic landscape of 1920s streets and palm trees matched with late 1930s-early 1940s revival style small houses.

Post-War Fill-In (1945+)

After the War the demand for housing continued. The thousands of new aircraft workers and returning veterans needed housing. Many military men stayed on and moved permanently to San Diego. The growing aerospace and military industries helped provide careers and push San Diego development. In the years directly after the War the remaining lots in Rolando Village were filled in with houses as veterans took advantage of their VA and FHA loans.

With Rolando’s original five subdivisions filling in, other developers soon met the demand. Another seventeen smaller subdivisions would go into the area west of the original subdivisions filling up the former open fields and hills up to the newly extended College Avenue. These developments including Rolando Glen, Dennstedt Heights, Parkman Estates, College Avenue Tract, and Seminole Terrace would generally reflect the post-war development trend of pre-built, two or three model plan subdivisions. These tracts would also be filled by the 1960s.

New businesses also made their way to the Boulevard and University Avenue. The few automobile and tourist related businesses along old U.S. Highway 80 would soon see the establishment of needed retail and service ventures for the new neighborhoods. The move of the highway into Mission Valley in the early 1950s therefore would also change the landscape of the Boulevard. Small shopping centers and retail shops began to be built to serve the growing communities. Two of the most notable commercial enterprises in the nearby area would be the Campus Drive-In at El Cajon and College, (built in 1948) with its giant neon baton-twirling majorette, and the College Grove Shopping Center, San Diego’s first “shopping mall” (completed in 1960) at the corner of College Avenue and Highway 94 (now the King Freeway).

In the meantime the identified boundaries of the community of Rolando would be expanded beyond the original five units then known as the “Village.” The popular current community boundaries of El Cajon Boulevard, College Avenue, University Avenue, and the eastern City Limits were now recognized as being “in Rolando.”

Of course other nearby developments also were identified with being part of Rolando. The area south of University to Highway 94 and east of College (although originally part of the 1920s property but never improved) would be developed in the early 1950s as Rolando Park. The old Rolando Village Company was the developer of much of this area but under its new name of Lincoln Homes Inc. The company would also be involved in building out Rolando Park’s eastern neighbor, Vista La Mesa (now part of the City of La Mesa). Local home builder Chris Cosgrove also built out several subdivisions in today’s Rolando Park area.

The Rolando name identification is found similarly for the bordering subdivisions to the east and southeast that are now in La Mesa including two 1920s subdivisions; Sullivan Tract (1921) and Superior Heights (1924) as well as the aptly named Rolando Knolls (1947). These adjacent areas which annexed into La Mesa include Rolando Elementary School and Rolando Park Little League Park, illustrating the scope of the Rolando name’s local influence. Some later community maps would also incorrectly include the El Cerrito Heights area west of College between El Cajon and University as also being part of Rolando.

Suburban Life

However you define it, by the mid-1950s Rolando was a fully developed suburban community with homes, churches, businesses, parks, and schools. The 1920s “Dream Town” was now a real community.

The 1950s brought school district, infrastructure, and annexation concerns. Rolando and its unicorporated neighbors soon realized the need to improve its water, sewer, and school situation. In 1954 the residents of Rolando Village and Rolando Park voted to join the City of San Diego instead of the City of La Mesa. Rolando Knolls, Superior Heights and Mesa Homes (surrounding Rolando Elementary School) choose to annex to La Mesa. During this time several new churches, many new businesses, the Rolando Women’s Club, and the Rolando Village Civic Association (later Community Council) were also established as neighborhood institutions.

Rolando had become a model suburb of San Diego. A 1970 San Diego Union article represented the neighborhood as a “bedroom community.” As the community aged, new concerns such as the proposed creation of Clay Park in the 1970s would garner local interest. Still, the exclusive suburban design of the Rolando Village area with its 1920s streetlights and curved streets allowed for the retention of its majority older single-family homes. This was important as other east-side neighborhoods in the 1960s and 1970s were inundated with scattered apartment buildings that broke up the “suburban design” of such communities.

Today in the 1990s Rolando continues to hold a reputation as a neighborhood which fits the “Sense of Place” and community spirit of its unique suburban heritage. In 1997 the Rolando Community Council and College Area Business Improvement District sponsored the Rolando Community Street Fair. The success of the event and the community response have made this an annual event which draws over 10,000 each March. Other local endeavors such as the Community Council’s collaboration with the City Parks and Recreation Department to place a community identification sign on Rolando Boulevard, work on a new Community Service Center in the old fire station on College Avenue, and the College Area Business Improvement District’s tree planting programs and enhancement programs along El Cajon Boulevard are evident of the continued community spirit of Rolando.

Recently Rolando and the surrounding neighborhoods have also been the recipient of the unparalleled generosity of philanthropist Joan Kroc’s gift of $87 million to the Salvation Army for building a new community center on University Avenue which will open in Summer 2002. The center will house an ice rink, swimming complex, gymnasium, skateboard park, family enhancement facility, recreation field, education and performing arts center. The Ray and Joan Kroc Community Corp Center is already being recognized as a world-class facility unlike any other.

Its been over 75 years since the first developers saw a vision of Rolando as a new city and a “World’s Master Development.” A resurgence in interest in Rolando and the establishment of the Kroc Center just may be the beginning of bringing those paper dreams to reality.

Epilogue

It is hoped that you have enjoyed and/or are intrigued with this short history of Rolando. However, this is just the beginning of the chronicle of Rolando. With on-going research I have begun to gather the standard source material about the history of the subdivisions, houses, and documented events of this community. But, what is missing from this history are the people’s stories. Those who live, or once lived, built, or worked in Rolando. If you have any memories, photographs, or memorabilia you would like to share with this project, please contact me by phone at (619) 203-2957 or e-mail at newl...@cox.net.

James D. Newland*

*Jim Newland is a graduate of San Diego State University who works as a historian for California State Parks. Jim and his wife Jennifer moved into Rolando in 1994. After discovering the unique mix of 1920s streets and 1940s houses, Jim began to gather information about the history of Rolando. He has since turned this interest into the community-based Rolando History Project.

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