The Buddhist Temple of San Diego was established in 1926 and traces its origins to a local
tragedy. Japanese emigrants had been coming to the United States as early as the 1890s,
and began settling in San Diego in some numbers in the early 1900s.
By 1916, a Japanese-American farming community had developed in San Diego County,
downstream from the Otay Dam. On January 27, swollen by two weeks of rain, the dam broke.
Torrents of floodwaters pummeled the valley below, destroying buildings and farms. Eleven
members of the community perished; most were Buddhists.
As the community buried its dead, San Diego's Japanese pioneers realized the need for
their own temple of worship to nurture their Buddhist faith.
Plans for a permanent temple grew over time. In 1926, the group rented the upper floor of
a building in downtown San Diego at Sixth Avenue and Market Street, This served as the
first official San Diego Buddhist Temple. The group eventually purchased its own land and
borrowed money to complete construction of a new Temple at the current location of 29th
and Market Streets.
The new Temple was dedicated on January 11, 1931.
World War II almost brought an end to the Temple with the signing of the infamous
Executive Order 9066. The order called for the forced relocation of citizens and
noncitizens of Japanese ancestry from their homes. San Diego's community was sent first
to the Santa Anita racetrack - where they lived for months in horse stables - and then to
various relocation camps, where they lived in crowded group barracks. Many San Diegans
ended up in one of the camps outside Poston, Arizona.
Meanwhile, the temple property was leased to the National Youth Association during the
war. The NYA built barracks on the temple grounds for use as dormitories for defense
workers. On January 19, 1943, an arson fire swept the temple to cover a burglary causing
much damage to the altar area and the second floor. Temple leaders, still imprisoned,
came close to abandoning the temple. Eventually it was decided to keep the Temple, and
the property was next leased to the USO.
After the war, it took several years for the battered community to regain the equilibrium
it had once maintained, and for possession of the Temple to be returned. But over time,
life returned to normal.
In the face of adversity and through many reversals of fortune, the Buddhist community has
kept its faith in Amida Buddha. We are grateful to those first Buddhist pioneers who
built the Temple in the middle of the Great Depression and rebuilt it after the war.
