Outagamie County, WI - "Alonzo Horton Also Founded San Diego" ************************************************************* USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net ************************************************************* Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives Subject: newspaper article "Alonzo Horton Also Founded San Diego" Submitted by: county coordinator EMAIL: jmmarasch@aol.com Date Submitted: 15 March 2000 Source: New London Press newspaper article from Bicentennial issue, undated. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Alonzo Horton Also Founded San Diego Ironically, the man who founded Hortonville was at least equally as famous for starting another city -- San Diego. He was a basket maker, lumberjack, grocer, cattle dealer, land speculator and somewhat of a failure before and after the time he was in Hortonville. Alonzo Horton was born in Connecticut. He was one of seven children. When he was six his family moved to the cold and damp shores of Lake Ontario, near Oswego, which had seen its first white settlers 18 years before. When his father became temporarily blind, Alonzo, though a frail boy, worked as a basket maker at night and went to school during the day. Soon, he saved enough money to purchase a small boat with which he traded wheat between Oswego and Canada. He gave this up to become a cooper -- or manufacturer of flour barrels, served a short while as a constable of Scriba and then turned to dealing in land. In 1836, be was told that he had developed consumption and was advised to go west -- which at that time included Wisconsin. For the next 15 years, with the exception of a period of several years in the east, Horton speculated in land and traded in cattle mostly in the booming area of Milwaukee. He married in 1841, but his wife died five years later. In 1847, at the close of the war with Mexico, Horton went to St. Louis and purchased land warrants from discharged soldiers. This way he became owner of 1,500 acres of land in east central Wisconsin in the Rock River country. This land -- which cost 70 cents an acre -- became Hortonville. But while the town was being settled, Horton was receiving exciting letters from two brothers who had joined the gold rush to California. Finally, after two years, he succumbed to the temptation of early riches, sold his holdings for about $7,000, and made the long sea journey to the new frontier. He failed as a gold miner in California. Finally he turned back to storekeeping, opening a store in the little mining town of Pilot Hill in El Dorado County. By 1854 his profits sometimes were as high as $1,000 a month. He felt it was then time to go home to Wisconsin where his parents were. But in March of the next year he boarded a steamer for Panama. From there he expected to cross the isthmus to the Atlantic seaboard. A native riot occurred however and Horton took command of the resistance. In the battle a bag which carried $10,000 of his gold dust was lost. All he had left was $5,000 he carried in a money belt. He never recovered the money. With the good fortune of California still fresh in his mind, Horton remarried and departed for the San Francisco in 1862. Another mining venture failed. All his dreams faded. Then came San Diego. Horton left San Francisco with the idea of starting a town. But the area which was to become San Diego was considered worthless by many. Along with a partner, Horton acquired 960 acres in 160 acre lots to the amusement of the citizens. The asking price came to 27-1/2 cents an acre -- even less than he paid for Hortonville.