San Diego History

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1. The Arrival of Spanish Mission "Style"

It's believed humans first arrived in San Diego's coastal areas some 20,000 years ago, while others settled in the desert about 8,000 years later. The first cultural group, which is now referred to as the San Dieguito people, date back to 7,500 BCE. They were followed by the La Jollan culture, which populated the coastal mesas until about 1,000 to 3,000 years ago. The Diegue?os followed about 1,500 years ago, and existed in two groups: the Ipai, who lived along the San Diego River and northeast toward what is now Escondido, and the Tipai, or Kumeyaay, who lived south of the river into Baja California and east toward Imperial Valley. The men mostly went naked while the women wore a modest cover of woven fibers and animal skins. Meat was not a major part of the diet, but acorns were -- the metates (stone tools) they used for grinding them into flour can still be found around the county. Seeds, berries, smaller prey, and shellfish rounded out their menu. Their basket-weaving and pottery talents were such that the vessels they made could hold water. The Kumeyaay were quite peaceful, even though the individual settlements often didn't speak the same dialect as neighboring communities.

After Columbus "discovered" the New World and the Aztecs had been conquered, stories of the fertile Pacific Coast to the north started to percolate. So certain was Spain of the riches that lay ahead that they had already chosen a name for the golden land: California (inspired by a mythical island from a popular novel of the day). In 1542, Portuguese explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo set out from Navidad, on the west coast of Mexico, principally in search of a northwest passage that might provide an easier crossing between the Pacific Ocean and Europe. En route he landed in a place he charted as San Miguel, spending 6 days to wait out a storm and venture ashore, doing a meet-and-greet with three fearful Kumeyaay (who had heard tales of white men killing natives to the east and south) before heading north along the coast. Cabrillo would not live to complete his journey -- he died some weeks later, following complications from a broken bone suffered in a skirmish with Chumash Indians on one of the Channel Islands, off the coast of Santa Barbara. Although Cabrillo wrote favorably about what he saw, it would be 60 years before Europeans visited San Miguel again. Even Sir Francis Drake, as he looted his way from Peru to San Francisco, apparently overlooked San Miguel. When Spanish explorer Sebasti?n Vizca?no sailed into the bay with three small ships on the feast day of San Diego de Alcal?, he renamed it in honor of the saint. But despite Vizca?no calling it "a port which must be the best to be found in all the South Sea," San Diego Bay was all but ignored by invaders for the next century and a half.

In 1768, Spain, fearing that Russian colonies in Northern California might soon threaten Spanish settlements to the south, decreed the founding of colonies in Southern California. The following year, following an arduous 110-day voyage from the tip of Baja California, the San Carlos arrived into San Diego Bay on April 29, 1769, leading "the sacred expedition" of Father Junípero Serra, a priest who had been charged with the task of spreading Christianity to the indigenous people. Serra would arrive about 2 months later via an overland route.

The site for a mission was selected just above the San Diego River, on a prominent hill that offered views onto plains, mesas, marshes, and the sea. The Presidio de San Diego was the first of what would be 21 missions in Alta California (the first mission in Baja California was established in 1697); a fort was built to surround and protect the settlement. The first years were laborious and fraught with sickness and famine -- by late summer the river would become an unreliable trickle and the land immediately surrounding the Presidio was infertile. The local populace was hostile to the Spanish, though eventually it was subdued by the settlers' firepower. After 4 years, Father Serra requested permission to relocate the mission to Nipaguay, a site 6 miles up the valley, next to an existing Kumeyaay village.

Over the course of 3 years, delayed by a ransacking courtesy of resentful Indians from neighboring tribes, the new Mission San Diego was built, and dedicated in 1777. The new location was well chosen, and in 1817 a dam was built -- probably the first major irrigation project in the West -- which allowed the cultivation of wheat, barley, vineyards, olives, and dates and the introduction of herds of cattle and sheep. Although the mission provided the indigenous people with a more sustainable existence, it came at a price: Their culture was mostly lost; communities were shattered by foreign diseases from which they had no natural immunities; and those who defied the Spaniards or deserted the new settlements were punished by whipping or confinement. From 1790 to 1800, mission records noted that 1,600 Indians had been baptized -- and more than half of them died in the same period.

In 1798, Father Lasuen and the Franciscans founded Mission San Luis Rey on a site near what would become Oceanside, in northern San Diego County. The church, erected in 1811-15, is perhaps the finest existing example of mission style, with its composite of Spanish, Moorish, and Mexican architectural styles.

In 1821, as what is now known as Old Town started to take shape, Mexico declared independence from Spain. California's missions were secularized; the Mexican government lost all interest in the indigenous people and instead focused on creating sprawling rancheros. The Mexican flag flew over the Presidio, and in 1825, San Diego became the informal capital of the California territory. Freed of Spanish restrictions, California's ports suddenly opened to trade, and for a period, the town was a hub for the hide trade. Ships brought in silks from the Orient, colognes from France, and gunpowder and clothing from Boston, and left San Diego with leather. But the mission era ended with a whimper: The trademark roof tiles used for mission structures were taken away and recycled into new houses built in Old Town, while the adobe walls dissolved into the soil.

2. The Missions Give Way to Gold

The Mexican-American War took root in 1846, spreading west from Texas, creating brutal battles between the Californios and the Americans. By 1847 the Californios had surrendered, the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo was signed a year later, and Mexico was paid $15 million for what became the southwestern United States. In 1848, gold was discovered near Sacramento and the gold rush began -- in 1 year, San Francisco grew from a town of less than 1,000 residents to 26,000. The road to statehood was paved with gold: In 1850, California was made the 31st state, and San Diego was established as both a city and county, formally confirming its future.

In 1850, William Heath Davis, a San Francisco financier, purchased 160 acres of bayfront property with plans to develop a "new town." Residents of Old Town scoffed, and despite Davis' construction of several prefabricated houses and a wharf, the citizens stayed rooted at the base of the Presidio and labeled the project "Davis' Folly." But in 1867, another developer, Alonzo Horton, also saw the potential of the city and bought 960 acres of bayfront land for $265. Calling it "the prettiest place for a city I ever saw," Horton laid out the grid pattern of streets, completed Davis' wharf, and built a hotel and new homes. Notably, he designated a huge 1,400-acre spread to the northeast as a city park. This time, people started moving in to the new town, and by 1869 San Diego had a population of 3,000. A devastating fire in Old Town in 1872 proved to be the final blow for the original settlement. A crucial catalyst for San Diego's development came in 1870, when gold was discovered in the mountains 60 miles northeast of town. Over the course of 4 swift but lucrative years, $13 million in ore was extracted and the town of Julian blossomed.

San Diego's gold rush was soon replaced by whaling as a major industry. Every winter, herds of Pacific gray whales migrated between the feeding territory of Alaska and calving grounds around the tip of Baja California. Peninsular Point Loma jutted into their course, and the easygoing whales, often traveling less than a mile from shore, were simple prey. Whalers from New England moved to the area, and by 1871, whaling was lucrative business. The mammoth carcasses were hauled ashore at Ballast Point, where the animals were butchered and their flesh rendered into oil. But like the gold rush, whaling petered out -- the number of whales dwindled and those that remained learned to avoid San Diego Bay. It wasn't until the 1940s that the endangered Pacific gray whale would start to make a recovery.

3. Location, Location, Location

The city endured brief bouts of boom and bust but slowly developed, with real-estate speculation providing the fuel for growth. In 1884, entrepreneurs Hampton L. Storey, who had founded a successful Chicago piano-building business, and Elisha S. Babcock, Jr., the director of both a railroad and telephone company, sailed over to Coronado for a day of rabbit hunting. The desolate "island" -- really a peninsula of sandy terra firma that protected San Diego Bay -- was uninhabited, but Babcock saw its potential as a luxury destination. The two formed a company and purchased Coronado and the land to the northwest (known as North Island, even though it, like Coronado, was connected by way of an isthmus of sand). They subdivided the land in 1886 and sold it for substantial profit, and then went about creating a fantastic storybook hotel, in the style of the epic beach resorts of Florida. Built in just 11 months, the $1.5-million Hotel del Coronado was the city's first link to tourism, and the world's largest resort hotel.

Babcock and Storey also helped establish a streetcar system for San Diego; by 1888, 37 miles of trolley track canvassed the city. Around the same time, San Francisco-based sugar baron John D. Spreckels dived into San Diego's real-estate market, soon owning two newspapers, downtown buildings, the streetcar network, and much of Coronado. Suburbs like La Jolla and Chula Vista began to take shape. But much of the 1880s real-estate speculation was based on the prospect of a rail line linking San Diego to the rest of the country -- by 1890 it was understood that San Diego would be served only by a spur line from Los Angeles. The real-estate market swooned.

A pivotal moment came in 1910 when San Diego's 40,000 citizens approved a $1-million bond measure to host a world's fair, ostensibly to celebrate completion of the Panama Canal, but with another, larger purpose: to promote the city to the world. Despite a competing event in San Francisco, the 1915 Panama-California Exposition was a fabulous success, and saw the development of 1,400-acre Balboa Park into fairgrounds of lasting beauty. Nursery owner Kate Sessions brought in and planted trees from around the world (particularly eucalyptus and jacaranda from the southern hemisphere, which remain iconic symbols of the county today); the undulating canyons and mesas were landscaped; an outdoor organ pavilion was created; and an arched bridge looking much like a Roman aqueduct was built over Cabrillo Canyon. Plaster workers were brought over from Italy to create the delicate flourishes on a village of Spanish Colonial structures lining a graceful prado. Theodore Roosevelt, William Taft, Thomas Edison, and a slew of movie stars were among the luminaries who attended the fair; Fatty Arbuckle and Mabel Normand starred in a one-reel film about their visit. The barrage of publicity from the 2-year fair touted San Diego's climate and location, and helped put the city on the map.

As the fair came to a close, a local doctor, Harry Wegeforth, was driving with his brother when he heard the far-off roar of a lion that had been brought in as a sideshow for the expo. "Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a zoo in San Diego?" asked Dr. Wegeforth. A zoological society was created, and the San Diego Zoo was born. At first the zoo was a motley collection of cages that lined Park Boulevard, but in 1921 the city gave the zoo a permanent home: 100 acres in the heart of Balboa Park. (Actually, in a compromise with the private, nonprofit Zoological Society, the city owns the land and the animals while the society administers its operation.) The park's canyons were ideal for containing diseases that might infect the entire menagerie, and over time proved ideal for creating naturalistic environments for the animals. Exotic species, most of them never before seen in America, came swiftly, such as rare Hawaiian birds, kangaroos, and koalas.

4. The Navy Builds a Home

The Hotel del Coronado and the Exposition proved that tourism could be a successful component of San Diego's economy, but it was the military that proved to be the city's backbone. Toward the end of the 19th century, the U.S. Navy began using San Diego as a home port. In 1908 the Navy sailed into the harbor with its battleship fleet and 16,000 sailors -- the War Department laid plans to dredge the bay to accommodate even larger ships. Aviator Glenn Curtiss convinced the Navy to designate $25,000 to the development of aviation, and soon after he opened a flying school at North Island, the northwestern lobe of the Coronado peninsula. World War I meant construction projects, and North Island was established as a Marine base. The Navy built a shipyard at 22nd Street in downtown, and constructed a naval training station and hospital in 1921. America's first aircraft carrier docked in San Diego in 1924.

San Diego's notable aviation history began in 1883, 2 decades before the Wright Brothers, when John Montgomery built and piloted a glider from a hillock near the Mexican border, soaring 600 feet into the air. In 1911, the first successful amphibious takeoff and landing was performed by Glenn Curtiss at North Island. The same year, Curtiss also piloted the first ship-to-shore flight, and received the first radio communication in the air. Aviator T. Claude Ryan started Ryan Aviation to build military and civilian aircraft and equipment. In 1927, Ryan built The Spirit of St. Louis for Charles A. Lindbergh, a young airmail pilot; only a few weeks after taking off from North Island, Lindbergh landed in Paris and was toasted as the first to fly solo across the Atlantic. In 1928, San Diego's airport was dedicated as Lindbergh Field.

Although the Great Depression stalled growth, the military economy meant San Diego made it through the slump relatively unscathed. In 1931, the San Diego Union wrote that the Depression's "effects here are nothing like as severe as those reported from industrial and agricultural centers in other parts of the country." In 1935, Reuben H. Fleet moved his 400 employees at Consolidated Aircraft (later Convair) from Buffalo, New York, to San Diego. A second world's fair, the 1935-36 California-Pacific International Exposition, allowed the Spanish colonial architecture in Balboa Park to be expanded, and many tourists became residents.

To alleviate some of the Depression's sting, the federal government created the Works Progress Administration (WPA) program in 1935 to provide work during lean years. Local artists were supplied with funds to create public art, much of which still exists today; the mural in the La Jolla Post Office by Belle Baranceanu and Donal Hord's water fountain sculpture in front of the County Administration Center are notable examples.

But San Diego had thrown its lot in with the military, which allowed the city to prosper when World War II broke out. The attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, mobilized the United States into a massive war machine, and San Diego was dramatically transformed. The headquarters for the Pacific Fleet was moved to the city, and the population swelled to build aircraft and ships as factories operated around the clock, employing thousands of residents. Balboa Park's ornate buildings were converted into hospitals, and the bay was crisscrossed with huge nets to prevent Japanese subs from entering the harbor. In 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt signed orders authorizing the War Department to detain Japanese-Americans; almost 2,000 San Diegans were held in camps like Manzanar at the foot of the Sierra Mountains, near Death Valley.

5. An Identity Beyond the Navy & Beaches

The end of the war didn't signal an end to San Diego's prosperity. New neighborhoods sprouted to house the thousands of military families that had been stationed here, and city leaders again cast an eye toward tourism as an economic rainmaker in times of peace. In 1945, voters approved a $2-million plan to dredge and sculpt Mission Bay from former mud flats, allowing the communities of Mission Beach and Pacific Beach to expand greatly. By the late 1940s, the local fishing fleet comprised hundreds of boats; the catch was processed by local canneries and supplied two-thirds of the nation's tuna, a $50-million-a-year business. The Korean and Vietnam wars didn't impact San Diego like World War II, but the military link kept the city humming in the 1950s and 1960s.

In 1969, the graceful San Diego-Coronado Bay Bridge opened and the ferries that linked downtown to the "island" were shut down. Downtown stumbled the way many urban centers did in the 1960s and 1970s, filled after dark with the homeless and inebriated. In 1974, the Gaslamp Quarter -- the new name for Alonzo Horton's New Town -- was designated as a historic district. Little occurred to revitalize downtown at first, but a redevelopment plan was established, and the first step was taken when Seaport Village, a waterside shopping complex at the south end of the Embarcadero, opened in the early '80s. In 1985, a $140-million shopping center next to Horton Plaza opened to raves for its charmingly jumbled architecture, and San Diegans responded immediately, coming downtown to shop as they hadn't in a generation. Entrepreneurs financed the revitalization of the Gaslamp Quarter, and condos were built in the area between Horton Plaza and Seaport Village (although most sat empty for some years). A second wave of development was spurred with the opening of a new convention center between the Gaslamp and the bay in 1989, and the neighborhood was cemented as a destination for restaurants and nightlife.

In the late '90s, a plan to build a downtown ballpark took shape, albeit with considerable opposition and delays, largely due to the significant city funding required and challenges to what was seen as a sweetheart deal for the team owner. Backed strongly by the mayor and the local newspaper, $474-million PETCO Park opened to great fanfare in 2004. The stadium has proven to be a boon to some downtown businesses and a nuisance to others; meanwhile, San Diego still awaits its long-promised downtown library. With less-than-elegant timing, the city's NFL team, the Chargers, began fishing for a new stadium, threatening to move elsewhere if it didn't get what it wanted. And since San Diego teeters on the brink of bankruptcy , and is fiscally unable to finance a new stadium, it's likely the Chargers are going to bolt. Stay tuned.

Traffic congestion and public transportation are increasingly vexing issues -- San Diego sprawls over a huge area, hemmed in on two sides by an ocean and a border. Mass transit has been slow to find a way to serve commuters. In 1981, the San Diego Trolley opened, providing a link between downtown and the Tijuana border crossing. By using existing rail corridors, costs were kept down and the system quickly found itself operating in the black. The trolley lines were extended, north into Mission Valley and east to Lemon Grove and Santee. A new section, opened in 2005, adds San Diego State University into the mix, and another $750-million extension in a few years will take the trolley north to the University of California, San Diego. But as a housing boom stretches the city's metropolitan area east and north, gridlock has emerged as a hot-button topic. Residents look north to Los Angeles as an example of all they don't want San Diego to become, yet slow-growth ballot propositions designed to limit backcountry development haven't proven popular with local voters. The large Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base, just north of Oceanside, serves as a crucial "natural" barrier that prevents Los Angeles and San Diego from merging.

The postmillennial "dot-bomb" fallout did not ravage the city, largely because a diversified tech economy meant jobs could be cycled from one sector to another. Today's San Diego owes a lot to medical and high-tech industries -- biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and telecommunications in particular, with companies like Qualcomm and Pfizer based here. One economic think tank declared the city to be the nation's number one "biotech cluster," supported by a steady flow of research from academic institutions like the University of California, San Diego, the Scripps Research Institute, and the Salk Institute. The biotech industry here also provides a home base for 13 science-based Nobel Prize winners and is directly responsible for nearly 39,000 jobs and some $8.5 billion in local economic impact.

An infusion of talent and fresh perspective has helped the city grow beyond its beach/Navy/zoo profile. Money has filtered into the arts, nourished the dining scene, and empowered an unfettered real-estate market that has run red-hot until a recent period of inevitable correction.

Buying property in San Diego still produces sticker shock for those unfamiliar with California prices -- in fact the National Association of Builders declared the city the third least affordable area in the country. In 2006, for the first time in more than 10 years, though, home prices actually dropped, slipping 0.8 percent. The median countywide cost for a home is $490,000; some neighborhoods even posted healthy gains. Coronado, for example, where the median home sells for $1.6 million, was up 7 percent from the previous year.

San Diego's motto of "America's Finest City" was quietly retired several years back following a tragicomic series of political scandals, some of which are still playing out. There was a tainted mayoral election (and the ensuing ascension of three different mayors over an 8-month period); the conviction of two city council members on charges of doing the bidding of a strip-club operator, with a third accused councilman dropping dead before he went to trial (this case has since gone back to court on appeals); and one spectacularly thieving congressman -- Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, currently serving out an 8-year sentence for his infamous "bribe menu."

That's all topped by an estimated $1.4 to $2 billion deficit in the city-employee pension fund. Creative bookkeeping is suspected, prompting city, U.S. attorney, FBI, IRS, and Securities and Exchange Commission investigations, and leading the New York Times to dub San Diego "Enron by the Sea." The city is flirting with the most devastating financial crisis in its history. Mayor Jerry Sanders has promised not to raise taxes, including the hotel tax (which at 10.5% is by far the lowest of California's destination cities -- it's 14% in Los Angeles and San Francisco); but other possibilities include layoffs of city employees, privatization of city services (an action approved by voters in 2006), cutbacks in funding for beaches, parks, and libraries, and higher utility costs (which could result in steeper hotel bills). And watch out for those unfilled potholes on city streets.

Tourism remains good news for the city, though. After manufacturing and defense, it's San Diego's third-biggest industry, spurred on by a convention-friendly downtown. In 2006, 27.9 million visitors came to the city, generating $6.1 billion for the local economy. Besides the obvious -- the beach, the zoo, and the weather -- San Diego livin' is easy, if you can afford it; and although it's the country's eighth largest city (San Antonio just nudged us from seventh place), there is a small-town feel. By big-city standards, it's a clean, safe, imminently approachable place, blessed with a glorious location and climate, and featuring a nightlife and arts scene that tenaciously battles for equal attention. Historically, San Diego has risen and deflated in spasms of growth and bust, usually tied to real-estate ventures. It's pretty obvious where we are in the cycle right now. Welcome to boomtown.