El Cajon Boulevard was built for the automobile.
By the 1950s, the long east-west thoroughfare had become one of San Diego’s busiest commercial strips, lined with motels, drive-in restaurants, a drive-in theater, and businesses catering to motorists.
By 1950, 48 motels had been constructed along El Cajon Boulevard. The Boulevard also had eight drive-in restaurants, a drive-in theater, and two drive-in liquor stores. Automobile sales and repair businesses had more than quadrupled between 1940 and 1960.
The Boulevard was also becoming a gathering place for another kind of automobile enthusiast: the hot rodder.
For young San Diegans fascinated by speed and souped-up cars, the postwar years brought a growing drag-racing culture. But finding a legal place to race was another matter.
San Diego’s organized drag-racing story began away from the Boulevard, at a former military airfield near National City known as Paradise Mesa.
The San Diego Timing Association held its first sanctioned drag race there on March 11, 1951. The races featured cars competing over a quarter-mile course, helping establish the format that became standard for organized drag racing.
Paradise Mesa became an important part of San Diego’s early racing culture, attracting racers and spectators from throughout the region.
But the track eventually closed when the property was developed for housing in 1959.
With Paradise Mesa gone, racers turned to another former military property.
Hourglass Field, near Miramar Naval Air Station, became an important gathering place for San Diego’s racing community. Racers held automobile races there, and unsponsored drag racing also took place.
Then came an accident.
On Aug. 6, 1960, a racing accident injured four people. The Navy subsequently closed Hourglass Field to racing.
Local car clubs lobbied city and county officials for an official place to race.
They did not get one.
With the legal racing venues gone, El Cajon Boulevard became an increasingly important gathering place for San Diego’s hot rodders.
(Photo and caption info courtesy of the San Diego History Center.)
In mid-August, mimeographed flyers began appearing at movie drive-ins, coffee shops, and car clubs announcing a mass protest meeting on El Cajon Boulevard, set for 1 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 21.
A local disc jockey, Dick Boynton of KDEO, also spread the word to radio listeners.
Soon after midnight, hundreds of teenagers and young adults began gathering along the Boulevard.
The demonstration quickly turned into something else.
About 1 a.m., some members of the crowd blocked the street and began racing.
Between 35th and 40th streets, cars raced two abreast while thousands of spectators crowded the sidewalks and center island.
(Photo and caption info courtesy of the San Diego History Center.)
More than 65 police officers moved in at about 2 a.m. and ordered the demonstrators to disperse.
Police used tear gas and batons to break up the crowd.
Some people responded by throwing bottles and rocks.
The confrontation continued for hours.
The arrests totaled 116 that Sunday — 80 adults and 36 juveniles — and the episode became known as the El Cajon Boulevard Riot. It was also referred to as the Drag Strip Riot.
But the dramatic night was really the culmination of a much larger story.
San Diego’s automobile culture had been growing for years. El Cajon Boulevard was already lined with places designed around the automobile — motels, restaurants, drive-ins and businesses serving motorists.
Hot rodders were part of that culture.
Organized drag racing had already taken root at Paradise Mesa.
The problem was that the young people who wanted to race increasingly had nowhere legal to do it.
A 2002 city of San Diego record later cited the 1960 El Cajon Boulevard riot as part of the history of illegal drag racing in San Diego and estimated that about 2,000 racers and spectators had been involved.
The demand for a legal racing facility eventually produced results.
San Diego Raceway opened in Ramona in 1963, followed by Carlsbad Raceway in 1964. The new facilities gave racers places where speed could be the attraction without turning a city thoroughfare into a racetrack.
By then, the August 1960 riot had become part of San Diego history.
El Cajon Boulevard already had the motels, the drive-ins, the restaurants and the cruising culture. It had also become an unofficial gathering place for hot rodders looking for somewhere to race.
For a generation of young San Diegans, the Boulevard became synonymous with the city’s street-racing culture.
Read more history stories here. Do you have a story to tell? Send an email to DebbieSklar@cox.net.
Sources:
- San Diego History Center — Mercantile to MacDonald’s.
- San Diego History Center — Guide to the Photograph Collections.
- City of San Diego — 2002 Council record on illegal drag racing.
- San Diego Yesterday — The El Cajon Boulevard Riot.
