A community fundraising effort that helped build a sidewalk in Cardiff more than 40 years ago is gaining a new audience online.
The city of Encinitas announced June 11 that decorative sidewalk panels created through the Cardiff Town Council’s Own a Piece of the Walk campaign have been digitally preserved and added to an online archive. The effort was completed through a partnership involving the city, Cardiff 101 Main Street and the Cardiff Town Council.
Using high-resolution 3D image-capture technology, the project created a digital archive of the personalized panels, allowing residents to explore the collection and helping preserve a distinctive piece of Cardiff history. The city invited community members to search the archive for family names, businesses, organizations and other inscriptions connected to the original fundraising campaign.
The panels represent an era before Encinitas cityhood when infrastructure projects went through county approval and funding. By 1981, Cardiff community members were calling for a sidewalk to line the south side of Birmingham Drive west of Interstate 5 leading into town.
The Cardiff Town Council’s Own a Piece of the Walk campaign was launched by summer 1981, which raised money to construct the sidewalk. For $15, residents, families, businesses and organizations could purchase 1-foot-by-5-foot sections and personalize them with names and messages them, with proceeds going toward construction costs estimated at about $17,000 at the time.
By 1982, construction of a second block of sidewalk was funded through the effort. The project continued into the mid-1980s as Cardiff, Encinitas, Leucadia and Olivenhain incorporated into a combined city.
In 2021, concerns grew about preservation of the panels as preliminary development of the city’s Birmingham Drive Streetscape Project began. The sidewalk remains in place as of now.
