See Broadway Fountain (Horton Plaza Park), San Diego, California

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When a city values innovation as much as San Diego does, it's sometimes difficult to find relics from the days of dusty streets and horse-drawn carriages. One prize, however, has withstood more than a century of development, even as downtown grew up around it. The 1910 Revivalist fountain in Horton Plaza Park is variously called the Broadway Fountain, Wilde Fountain or Irving Gill's fountain. Gill (1870 - 1936) was a trailblazing architect who would develop a style that defined Southern California. In the early 1900s he was hired to tame the park, which was developing a reputation for rambunctious public speech. He drew on classical elements of Greek and Roman architecture, which he then modernized. The fountain was one of the first public monuments in the country to incorporate colored electric lights with water, and it is the first recorded item in the city's civic art collection. Over the years it suffered from neglect and vandalism until a recent $450,000 restoration brought it back to life. Engraved in the frieze above the elegant columns is the phrase, "Broadway Fountain for the People."

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