{"id":472219,"date":"2026-09-22T19:34:20","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T19:34:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/472219\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T19:34:20","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T19:34:20","slug":"el-cajon-boulevard-san-diegos-unofficial-drag-strip-and-the-riot-that-made-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/472219\/","title":{"rendered":"El Cajon Boulevard: San Diego\u2019s unofficial drag strip \u2014 and the riot that made history"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Demonstration by hot rod dragsters on El Cajon Boulevard, 1960. (Photo and caption info courtesy of the San Diego History Center.)<\/p>\n

El Cajon Boulevard was built for the automobile.<\/p>\n

By the 1950s, the long east-west thoroughfare had become one of San Diego\u2019s busiest commercial strips, lined with motels, drive-in restaurants, a drive-in theater, and businesses catering to motorists.<\/p>\n

By 1950, 48 motels had been constructed along El Cajon Boulevard. The Boulevard also had eight drive-in restaurants, <\/a>a drive-in theater, and two drive-in liquor stores. Automobile sales and repair businesses<\/a> had more than quadrupled between 1940 and 1960.<\/p>\n

The Boulevard was also becoming a gathering place for another kind of automobile enthusiast: the hot rodder.<\/p>\n

For young San Diegans fascinated by speed and souped-up cars, the postwar years brought a growing drag-racing culture. But finding a legal place to race was another matter.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A 1950s-era hot rod dragster, reflecting the growing popularity of organized drag racing in Southern California. (Photo and caption info courtesy of the San Diego History Center.)<\/p>\n

San Diego\u2019s organized drag-racing story began away from the Boulevard, at a former military airfield near National City known as Paradise Mesa.<\/p>\n

The San Diego Timing Association held its first sanctioned drag race there on March 11, 1951. The races featured cars competing over a quarter-mile course, helping establish the format that became standard for organized drag racing.<\/p>\n

Paradise Mesa became an important part of San Diego\u2019s early racing culture, attracting racers and spectators from throughout the region.<\/p>\n

But the track eventually closed when the property was developed for housing in 1959.<\/p>\n

With Paradise Mesa gone, racers turned to another former military property.<\/p>\n

Hourglass Field, near Miramar Naval Air Station, became an important gathering place for San Diego\u2019s racing community. Racers held automobile races there, and unsponsored drag racing also took place.<\/p>\n

Then came an accident.<\/p>\n

On Aug. 6, 1960, a racing accident injured four people. The Navy subsequently closed Hourglass Field to racing.<\/p>\n

Local car clubs lobbied city and county officials for an official place to race.<\/p>\n

They did not get one.<\/p>\n

With the legal racing venues gone, El Cajon Boulevard became an increasingly important gathering place for San Diego\u2019s hot rodders.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>El Cajon Boulevard in 1948, during the era when the corridor was becoming increasingly automobile-oriented.
(Photo and caption info courtesy of the San Diego History Center.)<\/p>\n

In mid-August, mimeographed flyers began appearing at movie drive-ins, coffee shops, and car clubs announcing a mass protest meeting on El Cajon Boulevard, set for 1 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 21.<\/p>\n

A local disc jockey, Dick Boynton of KDEO, also spread the word to radio listeners.<\/p>\n

Soon after midnight, hundreds of teenagers and young adults began gathering along the Boulevard.<\/p>\n

The demonstration quickly turned into something else.<\/p>\n

About 1 a.m., some members of the crowd blocked the street and began racing.<\/p>\n

Between 35th and 40th streets, cars raced two abreast while thousands of spectators crowded the sidewalks and center island.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>El Cajon Boulevard c. 1952, showing the automobile-oriented commercial landscape that defined the corridor.
(Photo and caption info courtesy of the San Diego History Center.)<\/p>\n

More than 65 police officers moved in at about 2 a.m. and ordered the demonstrators to disperse.<\/p>\n

Police used tear gas and batons to break up the crowd.<\/p>\n

Some people responded by throwing bottles and rocks.<\/p>\n

The confrontation continued for hours.<\/p>\n

The arrests totaled 116 that Sunday \u2014 80 adults and 36 juveniles \u2014 and the episode became known as the El Cajon Boulevard Riot.<\/a> It was also referred to as the Drag Strip Riot.<\/p>\n

But the dramatic night was really the culmination of a much larger story.<\/p>\n

San Diego\u2019s automobile culture had been growing for years. El Cajon Boulevard was already lined with places designed around the automobile \u2014 motels, restaurants, drive-ins and businesses serving motorists.<\/p>\n

Hot rodders were part of that culture.<\/p>\n

Organized drag racing had already taken root at Paradise Mesa.<\/p>\n

The problem was that the young people who wanted to race increasingly had nowhere legal to do it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>El Cajon Boulevard c. 1932, before the postwar automobile boom transformed the commercial strip. (Photo and caption info courtesy of the San Diego History Center.)<\/p>\n

A 2002 city of San Diego record later cited <\/a>the 1960 El Cajon Boulevard riot as part of the history of illegal drag racing in San Diego and estimated that about 2,000 racers and spectators had been involved.<\/p>\n

The demand for a legal racing facility eventually produced results.<\/p>\n

San Diego Raceway opened in Ramona<\/a> in 1963, followed by Carlsbad Raceway in 1964. The new facilities gave racers places where speed could be the attraction without turning a city thoroughfare into a racetrack.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>El Cajon Boulevard c. 1942, illustrating the corridor before its postwar transformation into one of San Diego\u2019s major automobile-oriented commercial strips. (Photo and caption info courtesy of the San Diego History Center.)<\/p>\n

By then, the August 1960 riot had become part of San Diego history.<\/p>\n

El Cajon Boulevard already had the motels, the drive-ins, the restaurants and the cruising culture. It had also become an unofficial gathering place for hot rodders looking for somewhere to race.<\/p>\n

For a generation of young San Diegans, the Boulevard became synonymous with the city\u2019s street-racing culture.<\/p>\n

Read more history stories\u00a0here.<\/a>\u00a0Do you have a story to tell? Send an email to\u00a0DebbieSklar@cox.net<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sources:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Demonstration by hot rod dragsters on El Cajon Boulevard, 1960. (Photo and caption info courtesy of the San…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":472220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[29943,185739,185740,6568,982,418,9027,81047,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-472219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-1960s","tag-drag-strip","tag-dragsters","tag-el-cajon","tag-el-cajon-boulevard","tag-history","tag-racing","tag-riots","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}