Resort city located in San Diego County including Coronado Beach and the famous Hotel del Coronado, built in 1888 and long considered one of the world's top resorts

How to Get There

Get on I-5 S. Continue on I-5 S. Take CA-75 S to 7th St in Coronado.Take Olive Ave to G Ave.

Overview

Coronado is a resort city located in San Diego County, California, across the San Diego Bay from downtown San Diego. It was founded in the 1880s and incorporated in 1890. Coronado is a tied island connected to the mainland by a thin strip of land called the Silver Strand. The explorer Sebastian Vizcaino gave Coronado its name and drew its first map in 1602.

Coronado is Spanish term for "crowned one," and thus it is nicknamed The Crown City. Its name is derived from the four off-shore islands, Los Guatro Martires Coronados (Spanish for "The Four Crowned Martyrs"). These other islands are still known as the Coronado Islands, and are now located within Tijuana Municipality of Mexico.

Tourism

Tourism is an essential component of Coronado's economy. This city is home to three major resorts (Hotel del Coronado, Coronado Island Marriott and Loews Coronado Bay Resort) as well as several other hotels and inns. The downtown district along Orange Avenue with its many shops, restaurants and theaters is also a key part of the local economy. Many of the restaurants are highly rated and provide a wide variety of cuisine choices.

Hotel del Coronado

Coronado is home to the famous Hotel del Coronado, built in 1888 and long considered one of the world's top resorts. It is listed as a National Historic Landmark and has hosted many notable guests. "The Del" has appeared in numerous works of popular culture and was supposedly the inspiration for the Emerald City in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. It is rumoured that the city's main street, Orange Avenue, was Baum's inspiration for the yellow brick road. However, other sources say Oz was inspired by the "White City" of the Chicago World's Fair of 1893. Author L. Frank Baum would have been able to see the hotel from his front porch overlooking Star Park. Baum designed the crown chandeliers in the hotel's dining room. The hotel is said to be haunted, with room 3372 being visited by the ghost of Kate Morgan.

Hotel del Coronado, also known as The Del and Hotel Del, is a historic beachfront hotel in the city of Coronado, just across the San Diego Bay from San Diego. It is one of the few surviving examples of an American architectural genre: the wooden Victorian beach resort. It is the second largest wooden structure in the United States (after the Tillamook Air Museum in Tillamook, Oregon).

When it opened in 1888, it was the single largest resort hotel in the world. It has hosted presidents, royalty, and celebrities through the years. The hotel has been featured in numerous movies and books. The hotel received a Four Diamond rating from the American Automobile Association and was once listed by USA Today as one of the top ten resorts in the world.

Hollywood's playground

The popularity of the hotel was established before the 1920s. It already had hosted Presidents Harrison, McKinley, Taft, and Wilson. By the 1920s, Hollywood's stars and starlets discovered that 'the Del' was the 'in place' to stay and many celebrities made their way south to party during the 1920s and 1930s, specifically during the era of Prohibition. Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, Rudolph Valentino, Clark Gable, Errol Flynn, Mae West, Joan Crawford, Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis and Ginger Rogers were a few of the many great players (actors) who stayed at the hotel.

In August 2017, Hilton Hotels and Resorts took over the management of Hotel del Coronado as part of their Curio Collection. The resort is still owned by Blackstone and the name Hotel del Coronado has not changed.

Another famous resident of the hotel is the purported ghost of Kate Morgan. On November 24, 1892, she checked into room 302 (then 3312, now 3327). She told staff she was awaiting the arrival of her brother who was a doctor. She said he was going to treat her stomach cancer, but he never arrived. She was found dead on the steps leading to the beach three days later. The case was declared a suicide; she had shot herself.

In popular culture

it has been featured in at least 12 other films, including: Some Like It Hot (1959), starring Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon, and Tony Curtis, where it represented the "Seminole Ritz" in southern Florida;

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Coronado, California", and "Hotel del Coronado", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0