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Empire Builder: John D. Spreckels and the Making of San Diego
Current price:
$27.95
Publication Date: December 1st, 2022
Publisher:
University of Nebraska Press
ISBN:
9781496233417
Pages:
440
Usually Ships in 3 to 8 Days
Description
Winner of the 2021 San Diego Book Award
Empire Builder is the previously untold story of a pioneer who almost singlehandedly transformed the bankrupt village of San Diego into a thriving city. When he first dropped anchor in San Diego Bay in 1887, John Diedrich Spreckels set into motion a series of events that later defined the city. Within just a few years, this son of the German immigrant Claus Spreckels, known as the “Sugar King,” owned and controlled the majority of San Diego’s industry. After successfully building empires in sugar, shipping, and transportation and building development along the coast of California and across the Pacific, Spreckels rubbed shoulders with world leaders, successfully sued the U.S. government twice, and contributed to numerous educational, charitable, and cultural institutions in San Diego and San Francisco.
Despite the fact that Spreckels created and owned much of San Diego’s early twentieth-century infrastructure, his name is unknown to many contemporary San Diegans. Nobody could have foreseen that Spreckels’s empire would be all but forgotten in so short a time. Sandra E. Bonura strives to correct this oversight by providing a behind-the-scenes look at Spreckels and his family’s role in business. This deeply researched biography paints a realistic portrait of cultural, economic, and political aspects of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century California.
Praise for Empire Builder: John D. Spreckels and the Making of San Diego
“Fascinating. . . . Through one man’s life, we learn the more general history of how cities in this young country developed, a story of the ‘one-man town’ commonly played out across the American West. . . . The author has resurrected the Spreckels name from obscurity and established its place in San Diego history.”—Rowena Gray, California History
“With exhaustive research and a storyteller’s flair, historian Sandra E. Bonura offers a sweeping narrative of one of the nation’s most important and unjustly forgotten industrialists. Bonura weaves a tale that is at once epic and intimate.”—Charles Slack, award-winning author, journalist, and business editor
"An interesting bit of California history."—Kevin Winter, Manhattan Book Review
“Here is the definitive book on John D. Spreckels, a titan who came [to San Diego] and ended up seeming to own or control everything in town. To read Sandra Bonura’s biography of John D. Spreckels is to understand how many of the very foundations of America’s finest city came to be.”—Ken Kramer, creator and host of Ken Kramer’s About San Diego on KPBS-TV
“A sweetly told story of not only an important figure in San Diego and California history but a fractious family that helped give America its sweet tooth.”—Roland De Wolk, award-winning investigative journalist and author
“Sandra Bonura breaks new ground exploring John Spreckels’s escapades and incredible accomplishments across the Pacific. Bonura has a penchant for finding history’s obscured truths and retelling them vividly and honestly. Empire Builder’s story does not disappoint.”—Edgy Lee, award–winning documentary film writer and director
“Bonura takes a deep and satisfying dive into the history of one of the leading families of the West’s Gilded Age. The narrative is accompanied by fascinating narrative tangents.”—Leon Fink, distinguished author, historian, editor, and recognized expert on labor unions and immigration
“Through masterful research and clear writing, Sandra Bonura allows readers to more fully understand the motives and genius of J. D. Spreckels.”—Iris Engstrand, recognized authority on San Diego’s history
“Bonura expertly conveys the passion and drive of a man who invested his fortune and energy in building San Diego, a sometimes herculean task that earned him praise but also the enmity of those who resented his dominance.”—Theodore “Andy” Strathman, coeditor of the Journal of San Diego History
“Although best remembered as a transportation magnate, John D. Spreckels led in almost every aspect of a developing southwest region, including water and agriculture. This work is long overdue and should be a must-read for anyone with an interest in our history.”—Bruce Semelsberger, archivist and historian at the Pacific Southwest Railway Museum
