The next big event in San Diego history occured in 1872 when a New England dwarf by the name of Alonzo B. Horton established New Town. On Oct. 15 of that year he arrived aboard the merchant ship Longtrade after a long voyage from Santiago Chile. Having earned a small fortune in Boston he was looking forward to expanding on it. San Diego seemed a good place to start, having an excellent anchorage and relatively easy access to the east through the mountains. Unfortunately short-sightedness and politics would scuttle his plans.



By Nov. 1st he had purchased much of the land by the bay and was busy dividing it up into city blocks. Thanks to a crystal gram transmitted at great expense to New York City he had many offers, and was even making a sizable profit on his original investment. Then San Fancisco got involved.



The leading lights of that city got word of Horton’s plans, and decided they didn’t want a competitor in southern California. So they started rumors and planted stories about Horton’s plans, what he had to work with, and the utter impassibility of San Diego’s mountains. Having no knowledge of the local geography New York financiers accepted that last without reservation. Alonzo’s protested to no avail. His grand plan to establish a transcontinental railroad came to naught.



Fortunately, his plans for New Town fared better. Using the profits earned from land sales he was able to expand the port area, establishing docks and warehouses. From San Diego cargos were then transhipped up and down the coast. A railroad to the city of Los Angeles fared better than the east bound line.



During this time orcs and dwarfs first appeared in substantial numbers. By 1880 there were around 10,000 orcs and some 9,000 dwarfs. Faced with no small degree of bigotry, the two races found themselves allying against anti-nonhuman legislation. With the aid of the small elf and kobold communities they were successful in getting such laws repealed. In the year 1884 the nonhumans of California formed the Civil Rights League of California and succeeded in having anti nonhuman legislation overturned or repealed state wide. This same league would be instrumental in getting civil rights legislation passed nationwide in the 1920s that would result in substantial changes in American life. And, not coincidentally, lead to America’s entry in The Great War of 1933 to 1941.



Horton, however, ran into financial difficulties. He sank thousands of dollars of his own fortune in trying to get his dream railroad off the ground. In addition. a number of businesses he established failed in the depression of 1886. By that year he was destitute, deep in debt, and had developed a serious drinking problem. Were it not for his friends it’s likely he would’ve died of alcoholism.



They got him cleaned up, straightened out his finances, and provided backing for his plans. A Cure Disease rid him of the alcoholism. Unfortunately, while doing a personal survey of the mountains around the town of Alpine he disappeared before the eyes of his companions. An overzealous criminal attorney brought murder charges against said companions. It didn’t get past the preliminary hearing stage. A year later the lawyer was in prison, convicted of criminal libel, and Alonzo B. Horton was still God knows where.



Still, by the time of Horton’s disappearance (1890) San Diego had grown to a population of 90,000, making it the second largest city in California. That would soon change.



The city fathers of Los Angeles (a consortium of humans, dwarfs, orcs, hobgoblins, and drow) decided their city was going to be the number one cit y in California. Plans were even laid to make L.A. the state capitol. Through a comprehensive propaganda campaign they got backing from east coast financiers, while at the same time cutting off such from San Diego and San Francisco. The latter city, having city fathers of her own even more ruthless than L.A.’s, fought back with great vigor and effectiveness. San Diego gave up without a fight.



In the year 1900 San Francisco held the lead with a population of 300,000, Los Angeles second with one of 180,000, and San Diego in third with 105,000. 1906 would be the last year San Francisco held the lead.



The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 scared off a lot of people thinking of moving there. Los Angeles was quick to take advantage of this reluctance, nearly doubling in size in the next five years. San Diego also benefitted. Growing to 180,000 in the same period. In addition, the new cities of Chula Vista, National City, and Oceanside (on the county’s north coast) grew substantially and the inland city of Escondido was established.



Come 1910 San Diego’s port facilities were expanded again, this leading to the expansion of the San Diego/Los Angeles rail line to 4 tracks. The first such expansion on the West Coast. It was this year that Horton’s original plans for a transcontinental railroad were revived. With the backing of the U.S. government -and a partnership with a consortium based at Savannah, GA- construction began in 1912 with a ground breaking in San Diego’s Balboa Park at the San Diego Panama Exposition. Which commemorated the opening of the Panama Canal



From 1912 to 1920 crews of humans, dwarfs, orcs, hobgoblins, and gnolls faced mountains, deserts, swamps, dense forest, and political chicanery to build America’s second transcontinental railroad. However the city of Los Angeles managed to get a line built from the main route starting at Dallas TX and so managed to hold on to her preeminent position.



Still the new railroad did establish San Diego as a major west coast port. As a result the city expanded in population between 1920 and 1930 and by 1929 had 340,000 versus San Francisco’s 322,000.



During all this France, Serbia and Russia (The Entente) had a war with Germany and the Autro-Hungarian Empire (The Central Powers). Officially it all started with the April 1914 murder of Archduke Ferdinand in the city of Sarajevo, Bosnia. By August of that year the five participants had massed millions of men along their common borders. It was expected to be a short, glorious war.



It was short, but not glorious.



Germany astounded the world by opening a series of gates from the Rhineland to a point 100 miles south of Paris. Taken completely by surprise the French army collapsed in panic. On January 2nd, 1915 the French government signed an armistice. Feeling magnaminous, the Germans demanded no territory and only 3 billion Francs in reparations. The French had it paid off in 2 years.



Things were not as easy with Serbia. Still, by May of 1915 Belgrade was in Austro-Hungarian hands and terms were being dictated.



Russia managed to hold out until November of 1916. Even regaining some ground in the last few months of the war. But war weariness, spreading antiwar sentiment, and a series of mutinies in the front line served to bring Saint Petersburg to the negotiating table.



On February 13th 1917 the treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed, ending the war. Poland, Belorus, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Ukraine were given their independence. The Netherlands and Belgium entered a military alliance with Germany along with Poland and Ukraine. Germany was now the leading power in Europe.



All this meant nothing to the United States. Her attention was turned westward, across the Pacific Ocean to the Empire of China.



Imperial China very nearly fell apart during a twenty year period between 1822 and 1842. After the near miraculous defeat of the British in the Third Opium War China started a comprehensive series of reforms. Her government, bureaucracy, industry, and military were modernized. By 1863 she was a major regional power and looking for new lands to conquer.



The reforms also lead to a mass exodus from China. In 1869 the first Chinese immigrants arrived in San Francisco. After nearly 400 years the Chinese were back.



Feeling threatened by the now expansionistic Chinese, in 1849 Japan sent emissaries to Great Britain and the U.S. Both countries were quick to take advantage of the opportunity. So it was that two flotillas of three ships each entered Tokyo Bay on Dec. 26th 1851. If not for Japan’s diplomatic efforts the U.K. and the U.S. could have started their third war that day.



Once it became clear that Japan was open to trade and a military alliance with both powers, the two decided to set aside their differences and cooperate. While relations between them had been warming prior to this, most historians consider the Treaty of Yokohama (April 19th, 1853) the start of the long standing UK/US friendship.



The United States now needed an expanded military presence in the Pacific. So it was that a US Naval base was established on San Diego’s North Island. A marshy sand bar popular in the kobold community.



In 1908 the city of Coronado was established on South Island, a substantially larger body of land. Come 1924 the two were made one through the liberal application of material dredged up from the bay by the US Navy to accomodate the new, larger ships. By 1930 San Diego was host to a major military installation, ahead of Seattle WA, but behind San Francisco.



Meanwhile France had a few problems. The French kobold community, descended for the most part from refugees from Germany’s short lived anti kobold persecution, raised the banner of revenge practically from the day Paris signed the armistice. With support from conservative parties, smarting over the collapse of the French Army after Germany’s perfidious trick, the kobolds were able to prevent enactment of a formal peace treaty until 1923. The year the Treaty of Lyons was signed, later to be ratified by both the French Parlement and the German Reichstag. The signing was formally announced to the French public on July 6th 1923, at 3: 00 PM.



The rioting started at 3:01



On September 12th the French Government resigned enmasse. General Petain (one of the few commanders to hold his unit together during the debacle of 1914) took control in the name of the French people, promising free elections when the situation had stabilized. It never did. Petain’s dictatorship crushed opposition, repressed civil liberties, and started a program of military reform. A racist of the worst sort, he also betrayed his kobold allies with a series of laws that stripped nonhumans of their rights, reducing them to the status of animals. Under government direction zoological gardens in France began building exhibits for elves, dwarfs, kobolds, orcs and other peoples. Excess nonhumans (ones the zoos couldn’t house) were to be eliminated through labor and extermination camps. The Surete would make sure the rest of the world did not learn of this. Especially those puling fools in the United States.



For the next ten years France went on a diplomatic offensive. She forged alliances with Spain and Italy, lured Belgium away from Germany, and even managed to get an increasingly resentful Austro-Hungarian Empire away from her traditional ally. Germany in turn approached the United Kingdom, the new Russian Republic (established in 1922), and the United States. But were unable to get anything concrete. In 1928 France and the Chinese Empire entered into a military alliance. This led the United States to make an informal military arrangement with Germany formal. Japan as well. The British decided to keep their own counsel.



During all this the Great Depression began in 1929. Economies all over the world collapsed. France and China took draconian measures. As did Belgium and the Austro-Hungarian Empire to a lesser degree. France’s enemies (being much more open, even the empires) had a lot more problems. Once things were set right France would have a golden opportunity for revenge.



This brings us up to 1934. The world stands on the brink of The Great War. The next 46 years would see the United States of America engaged in no less than three major wars, with San Diego playing a leading role in each.



Coming up, Part three of a not so short history of (a fantasy) San Diego.



Author’s Note: No, this is not San Diego’s real history. Indeed, it is not the real history of the world. Dates and events have been changed outrageously. And may be changed again in later drafts. So don’t use this series as a source in any history assignment you have coming up. With Part Three I’ll be covering San Diego’s role in The Great War, the Pacific War between the U.S. and Japan, and the crusade against the Lich King of Hue. If I can I’ll also cover San Diego’s history up to the present day.



Comments are welcome, as always. Till next time.



Alan