San Deigo Historic Site 244 DERBY DIKE SITE

Fear that the San Diego River would silt up San Diego Bay to the extent that its value as a harbor would be lessened, caused the government to send Lt. George Horatio Derby, of the U. S. Corps of Topographical Engineers, here in 1853, to deflect the river into False (now Mission) Bay.Derby employed sixty Indian laborers in the raising of a levee from Old Town across the flats to the nearest high land to the westabout twelve hundred yards away. The dike was washed out, and the Army built another, and parts of a later one can be seen a few yards north of Frontier at Midway Drive.

The dike is remembered because it brought Derby here. As John Phoenix he was America's leading humorist. His delightful descriptions of San Diego life a century ago were best-selling literature before the Civil War.