To celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal and to advertise San Diego as a vital port destination for traveling ships, city leaders planned the Panama-California Exposition of 1915.

Apart from the architectural and botanical transformations that took place in Balboa Park, John D. Spreckels and his San Diego Electric Railway Company (SDERy) took on the task of providing public transportation for the Exposition.

Directing a team of engineers and designers led by Abel A. Butterworth, Spreckels, and SDERy Vice President, William Clayton, sought to develop a new streetcar that could both provide transportation for the visitors at the Panama-California Exposition and for the city of San Diego in the following decades of anticipated growth.

Built by the world-renowned Saint Louis Car Company, they were adorned with warm yellow colors, gold-leafed oak leaves, hand-polished cherry wood, and solid bronze hardware –- even the push buttons passengers used to alert the motorman were inlaid with mother-of-pearl.

Ultimately, after some updates and improvements in the mid-1920s, the San Diego Class 1 streetcars met the same fate as most light rail as The Great Depression began to take hold in America.

[citation needed] Fred Bennett, who was involved with the San Francisco Vintage Trolley project, found that the Class 1s were ideal candidates for restoration and recommended that they return to the streets on a streetcar line.