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Nearly two decades in the making, a comprehensive chronicle of North Park's first 50 years has made it to print.

"North Park: A San Diego Urban Village, 1896-1946" became available in May. The initial 400 books printed sold out in a month and the next batch of 300 is being sold for $20 at the North Park Main Street office (3076 University Ave.), Lost Your Marbles Too (3819 Ray St.), the Museum of San Diego History in Balboa Park and through Sunbelt Publications (www.sunbeltbooks.com).

The author of the book, Donald Covington, will never know the book's success. The SDSU art professor died in 2002 at 73. The North Park Community-Association's history committee -which began compiling research in 1988 and commissioned Covington to write the work -decided it should be finished as a tribute to Covington's many contributions to the neighborhood.

Covington's widow, Karon, asked Katherine Hon to help organize and edit the book. Through her company, Hon Consulting Inc., Hon typically specializes in environmental impact reports. Compiling the 254-page book "wasn't too much of a stretch" from Hon's day job, she says.

"There was a lot of word processing. I worked all last year with Karon to put the book together in its final format, to get rights for the photos," Hon says. "I think it came out really great."

The resulting book is a chronological walk through North Park's early years, from its beginnings as sagebrush and citrus trees to its commercial boom years as a premier shopping destination. Using old news clippings, historical photographs, building permit archives and interviews with longtime residents, the book profiles the neighborhood's pioneers, looks back at the inception of its various housing tracts and highlights its early churches, schools and landmarks.

"The more you learn, the more mysteries pop up," Hon says. "History like this can really grab you, especially of the place you live."

While Don Covington had completed about 95 percent of the book, says Hon, there were still nuggets for her to unearth. For instance, Covington hadn't written yet about Hon's own North Park tract, known as Pauly's Addition. Developer Aaron Pauly was an original "forty-niner" who came to San Diego in 1869. The subdivision map for the tract was filed in 1873.

The book details the history of 23 North Park subdivision tracts, from the ridge above Florida canyon east to Boundary Street, and from University Avenue south to Juniper Street. Addresses are listed where available, and more than 90 photos show North Park's early architecture.

"The reaction that we've had to the book has been really great," says Hon. "It's a keepsake coffee table book. If you read it cover to cover, it would take you from 1896 to 1946, but you could open the book at any point and read the story of the Granada Building or the Piggly Wiggly."

Don Covington was a frequent contributor to the San Diego Historical Society's Journal of San Diego History and his research led to one book while he was alive.

"Burlingame: A Tract of Character" was published in 1998 by Park Villa Press about the North Park neighborhood of architecturally distinctive houses along rose colored sidewalks.

Since "North Park: A San Diego Urban Village, 1896- 1946" has been published, is there another book in the works about the next 50 years? While it's a possibility, Hon says, "the next 50 years were not as charming or happy." Shopping malls developed elsewhere in San Diego lured commerce away from North Park, and the neighborhood declined for many years until its recent renaissance.

Hon says she would like the book to be instrumental in North Park's preservation while heralding a new era of growth and prosperity.

"I hope that it's used as a tool to understand how important it is to preserve our history," says Hon. "This architecture is fairly rare, so I hope people see how special it is so they preserve rather than knock down old homes. And I would hope people understand the significance of the Georgia Street Bridge. It's why this area was even developed - and that some resources go to protecting it from graffiti."

Last Updated 10/10/2008 by North Park History Committee  Webmaster