In 1938, the San Diego Civic Center (now the County Administration Center) opened, including sculptor Donal Hord’s monumental stone statue “Guardian of Water,” which still stands on the Harbor Drive side of the building. Carved from a 22-ton granite block, the statue shows a pioneer woman holding a jug, symbolic of the city’s precious resource: water. The mosaic tiles at the fountain’s base symbolize clouds from which water streams into images of orchards and then flows on to the carved sea creatures in the fountain’s basin. Hord’s intent was to show the importance of water in the cycle of nature. Discover more San Diego history in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).
