Photos from the Vault

Happy 50th Birthday Grover Beach

1893 Grover, er, Huntington Beach promotional poster

SOUTH COUNTY– In 1887, Southern California was experiencing an unprecedented boom in real estate values. lAt the height of the boom, land values in some areas were doubling monthly.
The South County was not immune to the excitement, and many new communities were laid out in anticipation of hordes of new residents. Many new developments were promoted, each hoping to be in on the next big community.
The boom was fueled by a rate war between the Santa Fe and the Southern Pacific railroads. At its height on March 6 1887 the cost of a ticket from Kansas City to Los Angeles was lowered to $1.00. Though fares quickly went back up they stayed much lower than they had been, and thousands of new immigrants flocked to California.
Among the developers who hoped to cash in on the influx of new settlers was a 35-year-old Santa Cruz native who was involved in many promotions. One, though, he decided to name for himself. It was to be a beachfront community with wide boulevards, a train station for the eagerly awaited Southern Pacific Railroad, a resort hotel and many hundreds of residents. This was the dream of Dwight W. Grover.
Grover was also involved in the founding of Templeton, and the expansion of Nipomo, and the founding of Los Alamos. But it was not until he and George Gates purchased land from John M. Price and Adam Spath, that grover developed a community he named for himself.
The new community seemed to have everything going for it. It was the height of the boom.
Grover and Gates had the community laid out with broad streets named for famous worldwide resorts. The grand hotel was started by AMr. Laird. a retail liquor store was started by Adam Spath, who had sold Grover and Gates part of the property, and a grand auction was held.
The initial offering was a great success, with $15,000 paid for 133 lots on the first day and an additional $7,500 for 75 lots on the second. The future looked rosey for the new town.
Unfortunately, this was not to be the case. Grover and Gates were counting on the arrival of the Southern Pacific to help their new community grow. The SP however, stopped at Santa Margarita in 1889 and did not make it to San Luis Obispo until 1894. In 1895 it finally made it through Grover–without stopping.
The SP got a better deal in Oceano, and located its depot there. Before this, in 1888, California experienced the worst bust in its history. Land values plummeted on a scale that up to that time had been unimaginable. Many developers and promoters of new communities and subdivisions, including Grover and Gates, were caught with land that was worth a fraction of what they paid for it.
Grover and Gates, while losing their interest in Los Alamos and Nipomo, managed to hold onto their property at the Town of Grover for a few years. They left the area, but continued to sell a few lots now and then.
many local businessmen had purchased land in the new town, and some continued to do so. Aron and Alexander, merchants from Arroyo Grande, and C.L. St. Clair, an news stand and tobacco dealer from San Luis Obispo, were among those who purchased lots in the new town after 1890.
In 1893, Grover returned to his namesake community to try to promote it a second time. His timing again was bad, though as that was the year of one of the worst depressions of the 19th century. After this last attempt Grover sold out.
On Jan. 23 1894, The unsold property in the Grover Townsite, about 1,000 acres in total had new owners.
Charles J. Russell, Moses Cerf and a Mr. Mowry, purchased D.W. Grover’s interest in his namesake community. They felt they would be more successful than Grover and Gates, and had quite a promotional effort in mind.
A bird’s eye artist’s view of the community was commissioned and printed for distribution to prospective buyers. The beach, which had heretofore been known as part of the great Pismo Beach, was renamed where it abutted the townsite. Henceforth this part of the beach was to be known as Huntington Beach.
The Tribune described the new view in an article in its July 25, 1893, issue:
“Yesterday, Mr. C.J. Russell handed us one of the early proofs of a new picture, a lithographed bird’s eye view of the bay of San Luis Obispo and its surroundings…We think the object has been quite well attained and concur in the endorsement given the view by a great number of the principal citizens of this city and Arroyo Grande.
The lithograph is obviously gotten up in the interests of the projected town of Grover, and the surrounding country is laid down with reference to that town.”
The train was coming and everything seemed poised for success again. By 1895 John Dockery started running a stage line to Grover, in addition to the Pismo Beach and Arroyo Grande. Russell, Cerf and Mowry were probably congratulating themselves on a job well done, expecting great things of their community.
However as we already know, the train bypassed Grover. The community failed to grow as anticipated, though a few sales did continue to occur. The end of the century brought the townsite back on the market.

Grover Beach gets the last laugh. Southern Pacific no longer exists, bought out by bitter rival Union Pacific, and the city now has the rail station. Happy birthday Grover Beach.