History of San Diego

The recorded history of the San Diego, California, region includes the first European penetration of the present state of California and the first European settlement in California, so that San Diego has been described as "the birthplace of California." Before that, Native Americans such as the Kumeyaay people had been living in the area for as long as 12,000 years. The town of San Diego has existed under three governments: New Spain (1769 - 1821), Mexico (1821 - 1848), and the United States of America (1848 - present).

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 arrived in San Diego Bay, which he named San Miguel. He went ashore, probably in the Ballast Point area of Point Loma, and claimed the land for Spain. 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[The perspective of this historical account needs credible evidence and is questioned - natives killing a priest should be supported with undeniable evidence from native history, not just from the recorders of history]. Father Serra organized the rebuilding, and a fire-proof adobe and tile-roofed structure was completed in 1780. 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. The tile-roofed adobe structure was destroyed by an 1803 earthquake but replaced by a third church in 1813.

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 1848 following the U.S. victory in the Mexican-American War and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. California was admitted to the Union in 1850. 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.

San Diego promptly got into financial trouble due to overspending on a poorly designed jail. In 1852 the state repealed the city charter, in effect declaring the city bankrupt, and installed a state-controlled three-member board of trustees to manage San Diego. The trustees stayed in control until 1887, when a mayor-council form of government was installed under a new city charter.

Although an estimated 10,000 people 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, and built rough houses and shops. One, William Heath Davis, 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. In 1853, the steamer Los Angeles collided with the wharf. The damage was never repaired. Unused and poorly built, the damage was not worth fixing. Davis 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. 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.

On April 15, 1867, 53-year-old Alonzo Horton disembarked from the Orizaba. 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 best spot for building a city I ever saw." He was convinced that the town needed a location nearer the water to improve trade. Within a month of his arrival, he had purchased more than 900 acres of today's downtown for a total of $265, an average of 27.5 cents an acre. He began promoting San Diego by enticing entrepreneurs and residents. 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 San Francisco. Since he 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. In 1933 the Spreckels heirs sold it to the Southern Pacific Railroad.

In 1912 Council restrictions on soapbox oratories led to The San Diego Free Speech Fight, a confrontation between the Industrial Workers of the World on the one side and law enforcement and vigilantes on the other.

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

The southern portion of the Point Loma peninsula was set aside for military purposes as early as 1852. Over the next several decades the Army set up a series of coastal artillery batteries and named the area Fort Rosecrans. 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, but not before being in whole or in part Camp Elliot and Sycamore Canyon Test Facility. The Marine base Camp Matthews, which was joined by Camp Callan from 1941 to 1945, occupied a mesa near La Jolla from 1917 until 1964; the site is now the campus of University of California, San Diego. 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 in 1997. After World War II the former site of Fort Rosecrans in Point Loma was used for multiple Navy commands, including a submarine base and a Naval Electronics Laboratory; they were eventually consolidated into Naval Base Point Loma. Other portions of Fort Rosecrans became Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery and Cabrillo National Monument. In the early-1990s, twenty percent of the San Diego region's economy was dependent on defense spending.

World's Fairs

San Diego hosted two World's Fairs, the Panama-California Exposition in 1915-1916, and the California Pacific International Exposition in 1935-1936. The expositions left a lasting legacy in the form of Balboa Park, the San Diego Zoo, and popularizing Mission Revival Style and Spanish Colonial Revival Style architecture locally and in Southern California as a regional aesthetic, and influencing design in the nation.

Tuna industry

From the start of the 20th century through the 1970s, the American tuna fishing fleet and tuna canning industry were based in San Diego, "the tuna capital of the world". San Diego's first large tuna cannery, the Pacific Tuna Canning Company, was founded in 1911. By the mid-1930s the canneries employed more than 1,000 people. Due to rising costs and foreign competition the last of the canneries closed in the early 1980s. A large fishing fleet supported the canneries, mostly staffed by immigrant fishermen from the Portuguese Azores and Italy, whose influence is still felt in neighborhoods like Little Italy and Point Loma. The author Richard Henry Dana Jr. describes the Genovese sailors singing in his classic book Two Years Before the Mast. Many Portuguese fishermen and boat owners settled in the Roseville neighborhood of Point Loma, which is still sometimes referred to as "Tunaville." There is a sculpture dedicated to the cannery workers in Barrio Logan and a "Tunaman's Memorial" statue on Shelter Island.

During World War II when fishing was not possible, 53 tuna boats and about 600 crew members served the U.S. Navy as the "yippie fleet" (so called because of service numbers beginning with YP, for Yard Patrol), also called the "pork chop express", delivering food, fuel and supplies to military installations all over the Pacific. Twenty-one of the vessels were lost and dozens of crew members were killed on these hazardous missions. Yippie ships won more than a dozen battle stars and several Presidential Unit Citations.

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. Starting in the 1990s the city and county developed a nationally known craft beer industry; the area is sometimes referred to as "America's Craft Beer capital". As of the end of 2012 there were 60 microbreweries and brewpubs in the county.

In July 1971 the Republican National Committee chose San Diego to be the site of the 1972 Republican National Convention, despite initial opposition from the city's mayor, Frank Curran, and despite the fact that the city did not initially bid for the opportunity. It was widely believed that San Diego was selected because it was the preferred choice of President Richard Nixon. The city and the party were making preparations for the convention when in March 1972 a $400,000 donation to the event by ITT Corporation was publicized and became a national scandal. In addition, there were ongoing problems with the proposed venue (the San Diego Sports Arena) and concerns about adequate hotel space. In May 1972 the Republican National Committee voted to move the convention to Miami, Florida. In response, Mayor Pete Wilson proclaimed the week of the convention as "America's Finest City Week", giving rise to the city's current unofficial slogan "America's Finest City". The 1996 Republican National Convention was held in San Diego in August 1996, headquartered at the San Diego Convention Center.

Scandals

During the 1980s the city was rocked by the disclosure that J. David & Co., an investment company run by the well-connected J. David Dominelli, was in reality a Ponzi scheme which had bilked hundreds of investors for an estimated $80 million. Dominelli was convicted in 1984 and served 10 years in prison. His affiliation with then-mayor Roger Hedgecock led to a pair of sensational trials in which Hedgecock was convicted of conspiracy and perjury in connection with contributions he received from Dominelli. Hedgecock was forced to resign from office; his convictions were eventually overturned, except for one which was reduced to a misdemeanor.

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.

Murphy resigned effective July 15. Deputy Mayor Michael Zucchet took over as acting mayor but had to resign three days later, when Zucchet and fellow city councilmember Ralph Inzunza were convicted in federal court for taking bribes in a scheme to overturn the city's "no touch" law at strip clubs. Their felony conviction required them to resign from the city council. A third accused councilmember had died before trial. Zucchet's conviction was later overturned. Inzunza was sentenced to 21 months in prison.

Beyond the issues regarding the city government, San Diego has experienced scandal on the Federal level as well. On November 28, 2005, Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham resigned after pleading guilty to bribery charges; he was sentenced to 8 years in prison. 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.

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 77,000 residents by 2030; 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