San Deigo Historic Site 491 THE EXCHANGE HOTEL SITE

This building stood on the Old Town Plaza, forty-eight feet south of theCasa de Machado. No information is available as to its appearance. George Tibbetts, called "Two Bits," because of his small size, was proprietor, as well as mayor of San Diego. He advertised the Exchange as a hotel and billiard saloon, in the San Diego Herald, its first edition in 1851. In 1855 theFranklin Brothers raised and enlarged the Exchange into the first three-storybuilding in San Diego.

The lower floor was adobe, the upper two frame. As the Franklin House it wasOld Town's leading hostelry, and a favorite place for dining and dancing, until it burned in the fire of 1872.

In a room in the Exchange during 1851, Masons met in San Diego for the first time and organized into what became San Diego Lodge Number 35. Lieutenant GeorgeDerby, the John Phoenix of literary fame, stayed here in 1853, and mentioned the savagery of the fleas, for which all San Diego was then renowned.