Rabbitville: The Forgotten History of Downtown San Diego Before Alonzo Horton Built It
Before the Gaslamp Quarter had Victorian storefronts and rooftop bars, it had jackrabbits. Thousands of them. Here's the story of how downtown San Diego earned the nickname Rabbitville — and how one bold real estate deal in 1867 changed everything.
In 1850, a San Francisco merchant named William Heath Davis paid good money to build a city on the edge of San Diego Bay. By 1851, the whole thing was empty. The buildings sat. The streets went unpaved. And the rabbits moved in.
For the next 17 years, the area that would eventually become the Gaslamp Quarter sat largely abandoned and overrun with rabbits. Locals called it Rabbitville. That nickname, odd as it sounds, is part of the genuine Rabbitville downtown San Diego history that most residents have never heard — even people who walk those same blocks every weekend.
The Hilton San Diego Gaslamp Quarter recently hosted a Bunnies & Brunch event at its Wild Hare Bar Garden, tying the celebration to National Bunny Day. The hotel was leaning into the rabbit theme as a fun brunch gimmick. What most guests probably didn't know is that the joke runs about 170 years deep.
William Heath Davis and the Failed City
Davis arrived in San Diego in 1850 with a real plan. He purchased 160 acres of waterfront land and shipped in prefabricated homes from the East Coast, including a small saltbox structure that still stands today as downtown San Diego's oldest building. The Gaslamp Museum, operated by the Gaslamp Quarter Historical Foundation inside that same Davis-Horton House, now tells this story to visitors year-round.
Davis envisioned a proper commercial city, not the dusty Old Town settlement a few miles inland. He laid out streets, put up buildings, and waited for San Diego to grow around his investment. It didn't. The settlement lacked reliable fresh water, drew open hostility from the rival settlements at Old Town and La Playa, and in 1852 lost its city charter — after which, by most accounts, its local treasury was raided by corrupt officials. By 1853, New Town had effectively collapsed. People started calling it Davis's Folly. The rabbits had no complaints.
The prefabricated saltbox Davis brought around Cape Horn survived. Everything else he built essentially vanished.
How Alonzo Horton Saw What Davis Missed
In 1867, a 53-year-old real estate developer who had been running a furniture business in San Francisco took a steamship to San Diego, walked the waterfront, and bought roughly 800 acres for about $265 total — averaging out to around 33 cents an acre. He saw the same land Davis had seen 17 years earlier and decided Davis had simply been too early.
Horton was not too early. Within a few years, he had platted streets, sold lots, attracted businesses, and turned Rabbitville into a functioning commercial district. The Victorian-era buildings that define the Gaslamp Quarter today came directly from the boom Horton triggered. By the time San Diego incorporated as a city, Horton's New Town had replaced Old Town as the center of civic life.
The Gaslamp Quarter, which covers 16.5 blocks of Downtown San Diego, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. Most of what visitors see there now traces back to the 1880s and 1890s, the decades immediately after Horton's purchase.
Why the Rabbitville Downtown San Diego History Still Matters
This is more than a fun cocktail party fact, though it is definitely that too.
The Rabbitville downtown San Diego history is a useful reminder that cities are not inevitable. Downtown San Diego failed once. A merchant with real capital and a genuine plan watched his investment get swallowed by neglect and wildlife. The city only happened because a second person came along 17 years later and tried again under better conditions.
For anyone living in or investing in San Diego today, that origin story carries some weight. The neighborhoods people now consider established were once either farmland, scrub, or, in the Gaslamp's case, a rabbit colony. Understanding that helps calibrate how quickly places can change in either direction.
The Davis-Horton House at 410 Island Avenue is open to the public through the Gaslamp Quarter Historical Foundation. If you have lived in San Diego for years and never walked through it, that is worth fixing. The building predates nearly everything else in the city center by decades, and the exhibits trace exactly how Rabbitville became what it is now.
For those of us who love La Jolla and the broader San Diego coastline, this kind of history is part of what makes the region genuinely interesting to live in, not just to visit. San Diego looks effortless now. It wasn't.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why was downtown San Diego called Rabbitville?
The nickname came from the failure of William Heath Davis's 1850 waterfront development. After his New Town project collapsed — hampered by a lack of fresh water, hostility from rival settlements, and the loss of its city charter — the area sat largely vacant for roughly 17 years and became overrun with rabbits. Locals gave it the name Rabbitville, a nickname the Gaslamp Quarter Historical Foundation still recounts today.
Who was Alonzo Horton and what did he do for San Diego?
Alonzo Horton was a real estate developer who had been running a furniture business in San Francisco. In 1867, at age 53, he purchased roughly 800 acres of the abandoned Rabbitville area for about $265, averaging around 33 cents an acre. He platted streets, sold lots aggressively, and attracted enough commerce and residents to establish what became the Gaslamp Quarter. His development is widely credited with shifting San Diego's center of gravity away from Old Town.
Where can I learn more about Rabbitville and early downtown San Diego history?
The Gaslamp Museum at the Davis-Horton House, located at 410 Island Avenue in the Gaslamp Quarter, is the best starting point. The Gaslamp Quarter Historical Foundation operates the museum inside the oldest surviving building in downtown San Diego, the same prefabricated saltbox William Heath Davis shipped around Cape Horn in 1850.
Related reading
• The Remarkable History of Del Mar Racetrack: From Bing Crosby and Seabiscuit to San Diego Icon
• The William Heath Davis House: The Story Behind San Diego's Oldest Downtown Building
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