A 1925 Pit Stop on Point Loma’s Rosecrans Street

By Debbie L. Sklar / Special to the OB Rag

In 1925, a trip through Point Loma could include a stop at the Point Loma Service Station on Rosecrans Street, where motorists could get their automobiles serviced while traveling on one of the peninsula’s main roads.

A photograph from that year, preserved by the San Diego History Center, shows two men working on an automobile outside the station. Their names aren’t recorded, but the image captures a time when the automobile was changing the way San Diegans traveled — and creating an entirely new type of neighborhood business.

Service stations were becoming familiar sights during the 1920s as automobile ownership expanded. Gasoline, repairs, and maintenance were no longer occasional needs for a small number of motorists. They were becoming part of everyday life.

Point Loma was well positioned for that transition. Rosecrans Street connected the peninsula with the rest of San Diego, making it an important route for motorists heading toward Point Loma and the military reservation at its western end.

The Point Loma Service Station became part of that automobile landscape.

San Diego city directories from the following decade document the business on Rosecrans. In 1931 and 1932, the Point Loma Service Station was listed at 1145 Rosecrans. Later directories show it at 1155 Rosecrans, with P. R. Lovett and Vernon E. Sherwin listed as operators in the mid-1930s.

The photograph dates to the earlier period, when the station was part of a neighborhood adapting to the growing popularity of the automobile.

For the two men in the photograph, there was nothing particularly historic about the work. They were doing what service-station employees and mechanics did every day: working on automobiles so their owners could get back on the road.

That ordinary task is what makes the image so useful today.

The station itself has disappeared, along with the early Point Loma streetscape surrounding it. But the photograph preserves a glimpse of how the peninsula looked when automobiles were still a relatively new force in everyday life.

Rosecrans had been an important route through Point Loma long before the arrival of the automobile. As historian Clarence A. McGrew wrote in the Journal of San Diego History in 1958, Rosecrans was the much-traveled road running from Old Town toward Point Loma.

By the 1920s, however, the traffic along the road was increasingly motorized, and businesses evolved to serve those travelers.

The service station was one of them.

It was part of a broader change taking place across San Diego. Automobiles created demand for gasoline stations, repair shops, garages, tire stores and other businesses that had scarcely existed in the horse-and-buggy era.

The two unidentified workers in the 1925 photograph therefore represent more than a forgotten workplace. They were part of the workforce supporting San Diego’s transition to a new form of transportation.

The old Point Loma Service Station is gone, but its photograph remains a snapshot of a neighborhood in transition — and of two men doing a very modern job for their time.

Sources:

San Diego History Center, historic photograph of the Point Loma Service Station, 1925:
https://sandiegohistory.org/

San Diego History Center, “Old Rosy,” Journal of San Diego History, July 1958:
https://sandiegohistory.org/journal/1958/july/rosy/feed/

City of San Diego, 1931 City Directory:
https://www.sandiego.gov/sites/default/files/1931_city_directory_book_part4.pdf

City of San Diego, 1932 City Directory:
https://www.sandiego.gov/sites/default/files/1932_city_directory_book_part2.pdf

City of San Diego, 1936 City Directory:
https://www.sandiego.gov/sites/default/files/1936_city_directory_book_part1.pdf

A 1925 Pit Stop on Point Loma’s Rosecrans Street

View of Point Loma Service Station showing two men working on an automobile in Point Loma and Rosecrans area in 1925. (Photo courtesy of the San Diego History Center)