However, due to a series of financial setbacks, the cable railway was forced to shut down after just thirteen months of operation. It fell into receivership until 1895, when it was bought by George B. Kerper. Kerper reorganized the company into the Citizens Traction Company, and electrified the line.
Kerper restored The Bluffs and renamed it Mission Cliff Park. With a merry-go-round, a playground, and a shooting gallery, the park became the place to go on Sunday afternoons. Dancing parties were held in the pavilion, where Japanese lanterns hung from the rafters. The first outdoor San Diego production of William Shakespeare's As You Like It was performed at the park in 1897. Theatrical and vaudeville companies also performed here. And, despite much opposition from the San Diego City Council, a liquor license was granted and a German Beer Garden was opened.
Kerper also proposed to construct a cog railway down to the canyon floor below the park, where it would connect with an electric-powered trolley to take sightseers to the ruins of Mission San Diego de Alcala. However, his dreams never materialized because in 1898, during the height of a nationwide depression, Kerper's company went into receivership.
The only prospective purchaser was John and Adolph Spreckels' San Diego Electric Railway Company. In 1898, the Citizens Traction Company was sold to E.S. Babcock, as acting agent for the Spreckels' interests. The San Diego Electric Railway Company kept five trolleys and widened the right-of- way from Fifth Street and University Avenue, where it was connected to an already existing Spreckels-owned trolley line, up to the park.
Spreckels proceeded to have the Camera Obscura removed, as well as the other attractions, and to concentrate on the pavilion and the grounds, which encompassed some 20 acres. In 1904, Spreckels chose Scottish-born landscape gardener John Davidson as the park's superintendent and asked him to redesign the park into a botanical wonder.
Davidson found that the soil beneath the park left much to be desired, consisting of hard adobe clay and scores of cobblestones. Undaunted, he proceeded to incorporate the cobblestones into the park's landscape. He and his workers used them to line pathways, tier terraced gardens, and as a construction material for a series of walls throughout the park.
Two of these walls still survive�one surrounds the former lily pond at North Court and Mission Cliff Drive and the other is the impressive cobblestone wall along the north side of Adams Avenue from Park Boulevard to Mission Cliff Drive.