El Portal Undercrossing
Location
On the walls under the train
About
One panel in a series of 17 mosaics lining the El Portal Undercrossing, each illustrating a piece of Encinitas history. This one shows the old Santa Fe railroad depot, built in 1887 on the site where the Lumberyard shopping center now stands, being towed on wheels: after the station closed in 1969, an entrepreneur bought it for $1 in 1972 and hauled it a little over a mile up Highway 101 on the back of a flatbed truck to Leucadia, closing traffic for a few hours in what locals remember as quite an event for the sleepy town. It reopened first as a crafts and hobby shop called The Station, then in 1980 as Pannikin Coffee & Tea, restored to its Victorian look and still operating as a coffeehouse today.
The mosaic project itself was a community effort: roughly 600 elementary students from Paul Ecke Central School and high schoolers from San Dieguito Academy designed and fabricated the panels using recycled materials like broken plates and shells, with each student's thumbprint pressed into the tile. It was led by Jerm Wright, an SDA art teacher and Leucadia native who has taught there for over twenty years, in partnership with Campana Studios, the nonprofit founded by San Diego artist and community organizer Jay Bell to create economic opportunities for local artists. The panels were unveiled August 10, 2024. Wright: "One of the things I absolutely love about a mosaic, it is so reflective of a community... we're all different shapes and sizes, handmade, broken and found objects, and yet we all come together to make a beautiful picture."
