Pacific Beach is now lined with restaurants, apartments, shops and busy streets. But in the late 1880s, when the community was still being promoted as a new seaside resort, one of its more unusual businesses was an asbestos factory.
The plant was established in 1888 near the Pacific Beach driving park, the horse-racing track that stood north of Mission Bay and east of Rose Creek.
The San Diego Asbestos Mining and Manufacturing Co. planned a factory capable of processing as much as 8,000 pounds of asbestos a day. The raw material came from mines near Elsinore and was used to manufacture products including boiler coverings, fireproof cement and roof paint…