The City Council declared Tuesday to be Marine Corps Recruit Depot Centennial Day in San Diego to commemorate local and federal actions that led to the base adjacent to Lindbergh Field.
According to the proclamation, the council passed a resolution on Nov. 29, 1916, that transferred 500 acres of tideland to the federal government to be used for the base.
Also in 1916, Congress approved the establishment of a Marine base in San Diego at the urging of then-Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt, Rep. William Kettner, D-San Diego, and Col. Joseph Pendleton.
The base opened in 1921 and was used for training recruits by 1923. Since then, more than 2 million Marines have gone through boot camp at the facility, which was dubbed the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in 1948.
“These brave Marines have deployed all over the world, including the Pacific Theater, which is especially poignant today given that tomorrow is the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor,” Councilwoman Lorie Zapf said.
Known for its unique Spanish colonial revival style, the overall site and specific building plans for MCRD were developed by the same architect, Bertram Goodhue, who designed Balboa Park buildings built for the 1915 Panama- California Exposition, according to the base’s official history. Twenty-five of the depot’s buildings are on the National Register of Historic Places, and 13 are named for famous Marines.
Kettner, who has a major downtown thoroughfare named after him, was credited with bringing multiple military installations to San Diego during his four terms in Congress. Pendleton is the namesake for Camp Pendleton, the sprawling Marine base in the North County.
—City News Service
