KGTV at 70: Looking back at San Diego in 1953

SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – As KGTV celebrates 70 years of sharing San Diego’s stories, historians in the city said the anniversary provides a good opportunity to look back and see how far we’ve come.

“You have these moments where you are commemorating or celebrating an anniversary and you want to look back and say, ‘How can I understand where we’ve been and how we’ve gotten to where we are?’” said Dr. David Miller, a history professor at the University of San Diego and the editor of the Journal of San Diego History for the SD History Center.

ABC 10News Anchor Jared Aarons spent part of the past few weeks digging through historic photos from 1953 and speaking with Dr. Miller about what they show.

The photos, Dr. Miller said, provide a glimpse at a San Diego that is ready to transform from a sleepy, agricultural-based port community into the sprawling metropolis we know today.

“San Diego in 1953, it’s really a time of transition, it’s a time of growth,” said Miller. “I think of it as this sort of in-between period where we’re going from what had existed before, the ‘boom’ of the second World War, to what’s going to become the SD we see today.”

Watch the video in the media player to see those historic photos of San Diego from above, of the zoo, and of several other major landmarks and people at the time.