History of San Diego

The recorded history of the San Diego, California, region goes back to the Spanish penetration of California in the 16th century.

Pre-colonial and colonial period

Cabrillo National Monument, San Diego

The area has long been inhabited by the Kumeyaay Native American people. The first European to visit the region was Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo. Cabrillo was Portuguese (his name in Portuguese was Joao Rodrigues Cabrilho) but he was a long-term resident of Spanish America. He was commissioned by Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza to continue the explorations of California. In 1542, Cabrillo discovered San Diego Bay, which he named San Miguel. He went ashore, probably in the Ballast Point area of Point Loma. His landing is re-enacted every year at the Cabrillo Festival sponsored by Cabrillo National Monument.

The bay and the area of present-day San Diego were given their current name sixty years later by Sebastián Vizcaíno when he was mapping the coastline of Alta California for Spain in 1602. The explorers camped near a Native American village called Nipaguay and celebrated mass in honor of San Diego de Alcala (Saint Didacus of Alcalá). California was then part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain under the Audiencia of Guadalajara.

In May 1602, Vizcaino had left Mexico and beat his way north with two small ships, the San Diego and the Santa Tomas. By November of that year, his ships were anchored in the lee of Point Loma. Markedly different from the conquistadors, Vizcaino had no experience commanding an expedition or conquering rich tribes. Instead, he was a merchant who hoped to establish prosperous colonies. After holding the first Catholic service conducted on California soil on the feast day of San Diego de Alcala, (also the patron saint of his flagship), he renamed the bay. When he left after 10 days anchored there, he was enthusiastic about its safe harbor, friendly natives, and promising potential as a successful colony. After a difficult voyage north during which 40 of his crew died, Vizcaino returned to Mexico, still convinced that San Diego would be the perfect location for a Spanish colony. Despite his enthusiasm, the Spanish were unconvinced, lured, instead, to spend resources seeking the rich trading opportunities in Asia. It would be another 167 years before California gained enough strategic value to generate colonization. When this time arrived, it was San Diego that was selected as Spain's first California settlement.

In 1769, Gaspar de Portolà and his expedition founded the Presidio of San Diego (military post), and on July 16, Franciscan friars Junípero Serra, Juan Viscaino and Fernando Parron raised and 'blessed a cross', establishing the first mission in upper Las Californias, Mission San Diego de Alcala. Colonists began arriving in 1774. In the following year the Kumeyaay indigenous people rebelled against the Spanish. They killed the priest and two others, and burned the mission. Father Serra organized the rebuilding, and two years later a fire-proof adobe and tile-roofed structure was built. By 1797 the mission had become the largest in California, with a population of more than 1,400 presumably converted Native American "Mission Indians" relocated to and associated with it.

Mexican period

In 1821 Mexico won victory over the Spanish Empire in the Mexican War for Independence. The Mexican Province of Alta California was created. The San Diego Mission was secularized in 1834, and 432 people petitioned Governor José Figueroa to form a pueblo. Commandant Santiago Arguello endorsed it. Juan María Osuna was elected the first alcalde ('mayor'), winning over Pío Pico in the 13 ballots cast. Beyond town Mexican land grants expanded the number of California Ranchos that modestly added to the local economy.

The original town of San Diego was located at the foot of Presidio Hill, in the area which is now Old Town San Diego State Historic Park. The location was not ideal, being several miles away from navigable water. Imported goods and exports (primarily tallow and hides) had to be carried over the La Playa Trail to the anchorages in Point Loma. This arrangement was suitable only for a very small town. In 1830 the population was about 600; in 1838 the town lost its pueblo status because of its dwindling population, estimated as 100 to 150 residents.

Joining the United States

Alta California became part of the United States in 1850 following the U.S. victory in the Mexican-American War and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. San Diego, still little more than a village, was incorporated as a city and was named the county seat of the newly established San Diego County. The United States Census reported the population of the town as 650 in 1850 and 731 in 1860.

Although an estimated 10,000 stopped briefly in San Diego on their way to the San Francisco gold fields, few stayed, and San Diego remained sparsely settled during much of the 1850s. Despite its small population, this decade brought investors who saw the potential of San Diego. They bought lots, built rough home and shops and hoped. One, William Heath Davis, had such confidence that he spent $60,000 constructing a wharf near the property he had purchased near the foot of today's Market Street. Remembered as "Davis' Folly", it was completed by August 1851, but was seldom used. Clearly a financial disaster, it received its death blow when, in 1853, the steamer Los Angeles crashed into it. The damage was never repaired. It had become clear that it was not worth fixing – in addition to it being largely unused, it had been so poorly built that the brittle piles kept snapping off. Davis tried and tried unsuccessfully to sell it. Finally, in 1862, the Army destroyed it, using timbers for firewood.

The failure of the wharf was only one indication of depressed times. Frightened San Diego promoters watched and worried as houses were dismantled and shipped to more promising settlements. By 1860, many of the enterprises that had been established during the early 1850s had closed. The few businesses that survived suffered from water shortages, high costs of shipping, and a declining population. Only those visionaries who were convinced of San Diego's destiny stayed; most packed up and left. Those who stayed wondered when prosperity would make their lives brighter. Luckily, they did not have long to wait.

Fifty-three-year-old Alonzo Horton, the visionary San Diego needed, disembarked from the Orizaba on April 15, 1867. Although his first view was of barren, mesquite-covered land with a few decaying structures, he was awed, saying, "I have been nearly all over the world and it seemed to me to be the rest spot for building a city I ever saw." He was convinced that the town needed a location nearer the water to improve trade. Unfaltering in his enthusiasm, less than a month after his arrival, he had purchased more than 900 acres of today's downtown for only $265, an average of 27.5 cents an acre. With boundless energy, he began promoting San Diego by enticing entrepreneurs and residents alike. He built a wharf and began to promote development there. The area was referred to as New Town or the Horton Addition. Despite opposition from the residents of the original settlement, which became known as “Old Town”, businesses and residents flocked to New Town and San Diego experienced the first of its many real estate booms. In 1871, government records were moved to a new county courthouse in New Town, and by the 1880s New Town (or downtown) had totally eclipsed Old Town as the heart of the growing city.

In 1878, San Diego was predicted to become a rival of San Francisco’s trading ports. As a result, the manager of Central Pacific Railroad at the time, Charles Crocker, decided not to build a station from Northern California to San Diego, fearing that San Diego would take all the trade from coming in to San Francisco. Although he had wanted to build a railway to Southern California to engage in trade, Crocker decided on the then small town Los Angeles, which did not have any sort of trading port at the time.

In 1885, a transcontinental railroad transfer route came to San Diego, and the population boomed, reaching 16,159 by 1890. In 1906 the San Diego and Arizona Railway of John D. Spreckels was built to provide San Diego with a direct transcontinental rail link to the east by connecting with the Southern Pacific Railroad lines in El Centro, California. It became the San Diego and Arizona Eastern Railway, and then in 1933 the Spreckels' heirs sold it to the Southern Pacific Railroad.

The upper floor of the Hill building, located at 6th and F streets, was the temporary location of the San Diego Normal School. Students and staff can be seen in the windows here in 1898. The school would later expand and change names several times until deciding on the current name, San Diego State University.

Consolidation as an urban center

Military presence

Significant U.S. Navy presence began in 1901, with the establishment of the Navy Coaling Station in Point Loma, and expanded greatly during the 1920s. Camp Kearny was established in 1917, closed in 1920, later reopened, and eventually became the site of Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. Naval Base San Diego was established in 1922, as was the San Diego Naval Hospital. The Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego was commissioned in 1921 and the San Diego Naval Training Center in 1923. (The Naval Training Center was closed on April 30, 1997.)

Modern San Diego

Since World War II, the military has played a leading role in the local economy. Following the end of the Cold War the military presence diminished considerably. San Diego has since become a center of the emerging biotech industry and is home to telecommunications giant Qualcomm.

Recent scandals

Beginning in 2003, the public became aware of an ongoing pension fund scandal which left the city with an estimated $1.4 billion pension fund gap. Despite mounting problems with city finances, the incumbent Mayor Dick Murphy narrowly won re-election in 2004 with a plurality of votes. The result was controversial because a third candidate, city councilmember Donna Frye, had run as a write-in candidate in the general election despite uncertainty about whether that was permitted by the city code and city charter. Frye may have gotten more votes than Murphy, but more than 5,000 write-in votes for her were disqualified because the voter did not fill a bubble in addition to writing in her name. Just a few months into his second term and under mounting pressure, Murphy announced in April 2005 that he would resign by mid-July.

A few days after his resignation took effect, two city councilmembers, Ralph Inzunza and deputy mayor Michael Zucchet, were convicted for taking bribes in a scheme to get the city's "no touch" laws at strip clubs repealed. Zucchet, as deputy mayor, was slated to replace Murphy as mayor. Inzunza and Zucchet resigned; a third accused councilmember died before trial. Zucchet's conviction was later overturned.

On July 26, 2005, a special election was held to replace Murphy. Frye received the most votes in the primary with 43% of the vote, but lacked the majority required to win outright. She lost the run-off election to the second place finisher, former San Diego police chief Jerry Sanders, on a November 8, 2005 ballot.

Beyond the issues regarding the city government, San Diego has experienced scandal on the Federal level as well. On November 28, 2005, former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Randy "Duke" Cunningham, resigned after a bribery scandal. Cunningham represented California's 50th congressional district, one of San Diego's congressional districts. Because of the scandal, San Diego briefly removed references to its longtime nickname, "America's Finest City", from its official city website, as reported by the Associated Press. As of December 5, 2005, the nickname appeared on San Diego's website once again, as pledged by mayor Jerry Sanders at his inauguration ceremony.

Other recent problems for San Diego have revolved around the city's troubled relationship with the San Diego Chargers and that football team's request for an improved venue. The somewhat embittered negotiations between the City and the Chargers have led many to speculate that the Chargers will attempt to leave San Diego, with Los Angeles as the supposed destination.

Urban renewal projects

The downtown area of San Diego suffered from neglect and blight in the 1960s, but under the initiative of the Centre City Development Corporation, the area has been rejuvenated. Since the 1980s the city has seen the opening of Horton Plaza, the revival of the Gaslamp Quarter, and the construction of the San Diego Convention Center. A recent boom on the construction of condos and skyscrapers (especially focusing on mixed-use facilities), a gentrification trend especially in Little Italy, and the inauguration of Petco Park in the once blighted East Village highlight the continuing development of downtown. Center city population is expected to rise to 90,000 residents within a decade; 30,000 people currently reside in downtown San Diego.

A successful renewal by 'gentrification' is the Hillcrest neighborhood, known for its historic architecture, tolerance, diversity, and locally-owned businesses, including restaurants, cafés, bars, clubs, trendy thrift-stores, and other independent specialty stores. Hillcrest has a high population density, compared to many other neighborhoods in San Diego, and it has a large and active lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.

This renewal extended to the surrounding neighborhoods in the 1990s, especially in older urban neighborhoods immediately north of Balboa Park such as North Park and City Heights.

External links

• San Diego Historical Society