John Price, the Railroad, and Tent City
Near Pismo Beach, California
Pismo Beach as a town began with a rancher named John Michael Price. Price had bought much of the surrounding Rancho Pismo from Isaac Sparks, and in eighteen ninety-one he laid out the town of Pismo Beach along the shore. Soon after, the railroad brought more visitors, and the trickle of visitors became a flood.
Around the turn of the century an inn called the El Pizmo grew so popular that its overflow guests were housed in a canvas Tent City, rows of clean, orderly tents. The railroad offered a clever deal, a fare that could be applied toward the cost of a tent on arrival, which some remember as one of the earliest timeshares. Tent City eventually faded away.
The town's road to becoming a real city was bumpy. Incorporation succeeded in nineteen thirty-nine, and then worried taxpayers voted to disincorporate the very next year. Pismo Beach finally incorporated for good on April twenty-fifth of nineteen forty-six, the small beach resort it had been growing into for half a century.
