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San Diego's Fountain-Blue by A. Roderick Hale |
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| The oldest continuously operating municipal fountain in San Diego was
built in 1885 as a gift to the City from Wyatt Earp.
The Gaslamp Quarter in 1880's San Diego attracted prostitutes and gamblers. Earp was the latter, but had an eye for the former. One December evening, Earp made a bet with his favorite lady that she could not balance a particularly large blue-glass Christmas tree ornament on her head while he emptied a bottle of seltzer water down the front of her dress. Despite the fountain of water, she managed to keep the glass ball from falling. To pay off his gambling debt to the lady, Earp commissioned a fountain to be built in
the middle of 5th and "B" Streets. It featured a jet of water that
supported that same glass ornament that cost him the bet. Remarkably, the blue-glass ball
in the fountain had to be replace only once, in 1886 when Earp shot it from a hotel room
window in another bet, with another lady. |
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 Table of Contents San
Diego Hysterical Society home page. |
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