Carlsbad, CA news and local guide

In the 1880s John A. Frazier, a former sailor, dug a well and began offering its water at the train station, and the whistle-stop became known as Frazier's Station. Tests on a second well found water chemically similar to that of some of the world's most famous spas, and the town was named after the spa town of Karlsbad in Bohemia, now Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic. To take advantage of the discovery, Gerhard Schutte, a German-born merchant from the Midwest, formed the Carlsbad Land and Mineral Water Company with Samuel Church Smith, D.D. Wadsworth and Henry Nelson and launched a major campaign to draw visitors. Homes and businesses went up in the 1880s, and citrus, avocados and olives soon changed the landscape. Land prices fell across San Diego County at the end of 1887, but the community survived on its farming. Sources Wikipedia: Carlsbad, California