12000 BC to 7000 BC
Original inhabitants of the San Diego area are now known as the San Dieguito people. The earliest cultural group, dated at about 7500 B.C., is referred to as the San Dieguito Paleo-Indian, which researcher Malcolm Rogers described in 1929 as a "scraper-maker culture." The Rogers site is above the San Dieguito River east of Rancho Santa Fe.

7000 BC to 1000 BC
La Jollan people assimilate the original San Dieguito people (or evolve from them). Today's La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club is neighbor to a major archeological site from this period.

1000 BC to 1000 AD
Yuman-speaking peoples intrude and assimilate La Jollan cultural group. Dieguenos, the Indians nearest the San Diego Mission and most of the central San Diego area, are of Yuman stock, as are the Kamia and Yuma tribes to the east. Indians gather acorns and grind them into flour, from which they make a healthy mush. Archaeologists have found evidence of ceramics, cremations, pictographs, stone tools, clay-lined hearths and elaborate stone walls, some built for defense and others for irrigation.

It is during this time that the New World first becomes known to the Cainites.  Wandering in search of diversion, their independant wanderings brought them to North America and eventually San Diego.  It would be some centuries before more than a handful of Cainites knew of its existence, and the knowledge made common among Kindred circles.  Also during this time, Lupines were also wandering the land, posing great dangers to the unsuspecting Cainites.

1000 AD to 1600 AD
Yuman and Shoshonean groups migrate to northern San Diego area. Shoshoneans occupy almost a third of California. In the northern San Diego area Shoshoneans comprise the Luiseno in North County, Cahuilla in the far northeast, east of Mount Palomar; Cupeno in a small region around Warner's Springs; Ipai or Northern Diegueno, from the San Dieguito River Valley to Mission Valley; and the Ipai or Kumeyaay from Mission Valley to Ensenada. The eastern limit is approximately around the Salton Sea and Salt Hills in Imperial County and, in Mexico, the Cocopa Mountains.

1492
Columbus discovers the New World.  He is accompanied by a Cainite (unknown to him) named Marcus Antinius, a Roman Kindred of Clan Ventrue, following with Columbus, wondering if the tales he heard from his Sire were true.  Needles to say, they were.

1513
Vasco Nunez de Balboa is the first European to gaze on the Pacific Ocean.  Antinius, along with an impressive bankroll, accompanied him, the "eccentric" Roman, and made sure Balboa's group remained safe through the long nights.

1519
Hernan Cortes first meets Moctezuma in the great city of Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City). Two years later, he returns to conquer Tenochtitlan.

More Kindred had come along to the New World by now.  A Toreador named Manuel Perez assisted him in the conquering of Tenochtitlan.

1535
Cortes lands at La Paz in Baja California and establishes a temporary colony there.  Cainites peppered the group of colonists sparingly.

September 28, 1542
Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo sails his flagship, the San Salvador, from Navidad (Mexico) into San Diego Bay on September 28, under the flag of Spain. He comes ashore, probably near Ballast Point on Point Loma. He names his discovery San Miguel and declares it a possession of the King of Spain. Cabrillo dies, suspected by Cainites at the hand of Lasombra Martino Valdez,  in the Channel Islands off Santa Barbara less than four months later. At this time the native population of San Diego area (estimated at 20,000) includes Luiseno, Cahuilla, Cupeno, Kumeyaay, Northern Diegueno Indian groups. Indians gather acorns from at least six species of oaks, collect fresh fruits and vegetables, hunt and fish.

November, 1602
Sebastian Vizcaino arrives with his flagship "San Diego", sent north by Spain from Navidad in Mexico. Vizcaino surveys the harbor and what is now Mission Bay and Point Loma, naming the area for the Spanish Catholic saint San Diego de Alcala. He maps the coastline as far as Oregon and gives many locations the names by which we know them today.  Cainite "assistants" helped him with the mapping, particularly a coupleof Toreador who drew detailed maps of the terrain.

November 12, 1602
First Christian religious service of record in California is conducted by Fray Antonio de la Ascension, a member of Vizcaino's expedition, celebrating the feast day of San Diego. A meeting follows the Mass, and later Indians appear with bows and arrows, but the Spanish offer gifts and communicate with sign language. The encounter ends peacefully.

1607
Jamestown becomes first permanent English settlement on the banks of Virginia's James River.  The further infusion of Cainites from the Old World began, as they sought fresh land.

1697
Mission at Loreto, the first of 23 in Baja California, is established by Jesuit missionaries.

1720
Mission at La Paz in Baja California is established.

1767
Jesuits are expelled from all Spanish territories. Gaspar de Portola is appointed governor of California.  His chief advisor, Rotello de Esposito, is a Ventrue, who helps oversee the elimination of recalitrant Jesuits.

1768
Inspector General Jose de Galvez organizes expeditions from Baja (Lower) California to settle Alta California. The Russians are beginning to colonize the northern reaches of the West Coast, among them several Tzimisce, and the Spanish wish to protect their claim to Alta California. Only secondarily is this a move to Christianize native peoples. The plan is to establish a mission at San Diego, then head north for Monterey. Five groups are to meet in San Diego - two travel by land and three are sent by sea.

Jan 9, 1769
The San Carlos, first of three ships laden with soldiers, personnel, agricultural and church supplies, departs from La Paz. The San Antonio leaves later, followed much later by a supply ship, the San Jose, which turns back.

March 24, 1769
Captain Fernando Rivera y Moncada departs Velicata, near the present site of San Rosario, leading a land party of 25 soldiers, 3 muleteers with a packtrain of 180 mules. With Franciscan Father Juan Crespi and about 50 Indians, they hike the rugged desert trail up the Baja peninsula. Father Junipero Serra departs from Loreto Mission March 28, suffering from a painful leg infection. Rumor had it he claimed a "dog man" had attacked him and he barely escaped.  He meets up with Captain Gaspar de Portola at the frontier mission of Santa Maria on May 5th. They travel to Velicata and depart for San Diego on May 15, with the second land party.

April 11, 1769
The ship San Antonio sails into San Diego Bay, after a 54 day journey, and anchors just inside Ballast Point. The San Carlos arrives two weeks later, adverse winds having prolonged her trip to 110 days. Some of the crew had died due to a mysterious blood disease and most are sick with scurvy. A canvas hospital is set up on the beach.

May 14, 1769
The advance land party of military men, natives and Franciscan brothers, including Father Juan Crespi, reaches the shores of San Diego Bay, where they find 21 sailors and some military men have died, the rest ill with scurvy, with the exception of three men.  It was never discovered why those three men were not ill, but it is known now they were Cainites. A new camp is established on Presidio hill near the present site of Old Town. There is a large Indian village nearby in present-day Mission Valley.

June 27, 1769
Portola and Serra, with the second land party, reach Rosarito. Portola pushes ahead to arrive at San Diego on June 29 with a small group, followed two days later by Father Serra.

July 16, 1769
Mission San Diego de Alcala is officially founded on Presidio Hill, the first of a chain of twenty-one missions to be established along the California coast.

March 19,1770
The San Antonio brings much-needed food and supplies to San Diego and takes some people back to Mexico.

December 16, 1773
The Boston "Tea Party" revives American passions about the issue of taxation without representation. Samuel Adams and other local patriots, masquerading as Mohawk Indians, board three British ships and empty 342 chests of tea into Boston harbor.

August, 1774
The Mission is relocated six miles east of the presidio complex to the present site of Mission San Diego de Alcala, near the Diegueno village of Nipaguay.

1774
The Presidio is designated a military outpost separate from the direct administration of the Presidio of Monterey. Work continues on a larger stockade and the garrison is increased to about twenty five men.

September 26, 1774
The first colonists arrive in San Diego, escorted from the Baja California Mission San Fernando Velicata by Sergeant Jose Ortega of the Presidio.  Cainite influence is once again noted by Cainite scholars, having stayed fairly low profile, and begin slowly trickling into the new colony.

November 4-5, 1775
Indians surround Mission San Diego de Alcala, set fire to its fragile wooden structures and attack a small contingent of stunned Spaniards. Father Luis Jayme and two other Spaniards are slain in a bloody ending, givng rise to rumors of the "dog men" and of course, vampires, and the survivors withdraw to the presidio six miles west. Read Journal of San Diego History article about the mission revolt.

January 4, 1776
Juan Bautista de Anza arrives at San Gabriel Mission with colonists destined for Monterey and San Francisco. Within a week, de Anza comes to San Diego, where he is joined by Lt. Governor Rivera y Moncada in an investigation of the recent Indian attack upon the Mission.  Local Gangrel had encouraged the attacks, as they disliked seeing the Indians mistreated.

July to October, 1776
Father Serra returns to San Diego aboard the San Antonio on July 11. Mission buildings are rebuilt with the help of Indians and sailors from the San Antonio who make adobe, dig trenches and gather stone.

1776
The Thirteen Colonies declare their independence from Great Britain.  Cainite influence in mortal American politics begins to be felt subtly.

1777
The first major group of non-soldier settlers arrives at the Presidio and sets up housekeeping in the new adobe fortress.

1782
Juan Pantoja y Arriaza, pilot on La Princesa, charts San Diego Bay and indicates place names on map.

1784
Father Junipero Serra, 70, dies at Monterey, having founded nine missions in 15 years.

1786
Two French ships arrive in San Diego.

1787
American ship Columbia circumnavigates the globe and stirs interest in California.

1790
The Presidio population now numbers more than 200, including soldiers, civilians and children.

1793
George Vancouver arrives on the British ship Discovery, the first foreign vessel to enter San Diego Bay.

1795
Manuel de Vargas, pioneer school teacher, opens the first public school.

1796
Spanish begin construction of Fort Guijarros, with crude barracks, at the base of Ballast Point on Point Loma, in hopes of defending San Diego from ships entering the bay. The fort, made of adobe and armed with a 9 pound cannon, is completed in 1797.

1797
San Diego mission becomes most populous in California with 1,405 Indians.  Among these are several Gangrel, Brujah, and smatterings fo other Clans.

June 13, 1798
Mission San Luis Rey de Francia is founded by Father Fermin Francisco de Lasuen. The 18th of the 21 California missions, it is named after Saint Louis IX, King of France. It grows quickly to become the largest mission with a peak population of nearly 3,000 during the 1820s. Photo of Mission San Luis Rey, 1870s.

1800
A new commander's house is finished in the Presidio plaza. The garrison now numbers more than 100. First American ship, Betsy, arrives at San Diego.

August 25,1800
First American ship, Betsy, under command of Capt. Charles Winship, arrives at San Diego.

March 17, 1803
American ship Lelia Bird, under command of Capt. William Shaler, attempts to leave San Diego port with 1000 smuggled otter skins. Spanish battery on Fort Guijarros (at Ballast Point on Point Loma) fires on the Lelia Bird, which returns fire. Spanish guards on board the ship are later freed. Nobody is injured.

1808
Construction begins on new San Diego Mission church.

1810
Mexican war of independence from Spain begins in central Mexico with few direct impacts on the frontier, except for increasing trade with foreign merchants.  Cainites once more subtly influence this decision, to gain a greater hold over their growing herds.

1812
War of 1812 between United States and Great Britain begins.  The English Ventrue and the American Ventrue find themselves at odds with one another, with the Toreador, Brujah, and other clans on each side joining in.

1812
Earthquake destroys the San Diego Mission church, which is reconstructed in 1813.  The rebuilding is financed by a Toreador named Vito Mancelli.

1813
Work begins on Mission Dam and aqueduct, finished in 1816-17. Photo of Mission Dam in 1874.

March, 1817
The Traveler departs with California's first shipment of grain. 

1820-1830
More settlers bring the total population to more than six hundred residents. Presidio families begin to establish homes in what becomes Old Town San Diego. The adobes of Maria Reyes Ibanez at the corner of present-day Juan and Wallace Streets, Rafaela Serrano on Juan Street, and Pio Pico next door are all finished by 1824. Between 1827 and 1830 several other structures are built around Old Town plaza including those of Juan Rodriguez, Jose Antonio Estudillo, Juan Bandini, Dona Tomasa Alvarado, and Rosario Aguilar. (From "A Brief History of Old Town by Iris W. Engstrand and Ray Brandes.)

1821
Mexico wins independence from Spain and San Diego comes under Mexican rule for about 25 years. First known home (today's Presidio Hills Golf Course golf shop) is built in Old Town.  Sabbat activity first starts increasing quickly during this period.

April 20, 1822
Mexican flag is raised over the Presidio. California swears allegiance to Mexico.

1823
Los Penasquitos, the first private rancho, is granted by the Mexican government - 8,486 acres to Captain Francisco María Ruíz; eventually 33 land grants covering 948 square miles are recognized.

1825
San Diego becomes the unofficial capital of Upper and Lower California, because of the preference of new Governor Jose Maria Echeandia. The Presidio, with its dwindling garrison, goes into significant decline.

1826
San Diego Presidio soldiers skirmish with Indians, killing 28.

1826
Jedediah Smith, the first American to arrive overland in San Diego, opens a route from Salt Lake City.

1829
Boston trader Henry Delano Fitch elopes with Josefa Carrillo from San Diego.

1832-33
Malaria epidemic kills many Indians, officially.  The true cause of death has now been traced back to increased feeding from Sabbat moving north from Tijuana. Secularization Act leads to closing of missions.

September 1, 1834
Juan Bandini and Jose Hijar arrive on the brig Natalie with 140 colonists.

December 21, 1834
13 votes are cast in San Diego's first pueblo election. Juan Osuna is elected first alcalde (mayor) over Pio Pico.

January 1, 1835
Recently elected officials take office when San Diego becomes a pueblo.

1835
Richard Henry Dana (1815-1882) arrives in San Diego as a common seaman aboard the brig Pilgrim. Dana's book "Two Years Before the Mast", published in 1841, is one of America's most famous accounts of life at sea. It contains a detailed account of hide-curing, woodcutting, local wildlife and rattlesnakes during his four months in San Diego. Read more on Dana's San Diego visit.

1835
The Mexican military and last residents abandon the Presidio and the site becomes a ruin. Photo of Presidio Hill in 1872 shows ruins at upper left, "Serra palm" at right.

1837
Juan Bandini leads rebellion, captures Los Angeles.  Spearheaded with flanking soldiers under the control of Raphael Montoya, a Toreador master strategist, the taking of Los Angeles takes little time.

1837-39
Smallpox epidemic kills many Indians.  Feeding for Cainites becomes more difficult, for fear of contracting smallpox.

1838
San Diego's pueblo status is revoked because of a decrease in San Diego's population (probably 100-150). From 1838 to the Mexican War San Diego is governed as part of the sub-prefecture of Los Angeles.

1839
Indians, with Cainite assistance, plunder San Diego back-country ranches. 

1845
New Governor Pio Pico orders land confiscation and sale of the California missions. California divided into 2 districts; southern district from San Luis Obispo south.

May 13, 1846
United States declares war on Mexico, having gained the wrath of powerful Cainites, invades Mexico from the east, reaching San Diego in December.

July 29, 1846
Marine detachment from the sloop-of-war Cyane raises the first American flag in the Plaza of Old Town San Diego.  American Cainites looked on in approval.

October 31, 1846
Admiral Robert F. Stockton arrives aboard Congress. Fort Stockton is established on the top of Presidio Hill in November 1846 to defend the city during the Mexican War.

December 6, 1846
General Stephen Watts Kearny's "Army of the West" enagages General Andres Pico and his Mexican-Californian army in a bloody battle at the Valley of San Pasqual, near present-day Escondidio. The United States suffers many casualties, including nineteen American dead and many more wounded. The Mexicans are reported to have six soldiers killed at the battle, and many more wounded as well. Although the war for California is won by the United States, the Battle of San Pasqual proves to be an important victory for the Californios.  The American Cainites grow angrier at the victory.

January 29, 1847
Mormon Battalion arrives in San Diego, without ever fighting a battle. Five companies totaling 500 men had been mustered in at Council Bluffs, Iowa on July 16, 1846, along with some 34 women and 51 children, to join U.S. forces in the war with Mexico. Under command of Philip St. George Cooke after reaching Santa Fe, some 339 men, 4 or 5 women and perhaps 6 children complete the 2000 mile trek to San Diego.

January 24, 1848
The discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill starts the California Gold Rush.  Many American Cainites moved in that area, as there would be a fresh flush of mortals to feed from.

February 2, 1848
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is signed, ending the war between Mexico and the United States. Treaty also sets the boundary between US and Mexico which arbitrarily divides the two countries (Native peoples are the most impacted, since historically and by language groupings they are one group, suddenly cast into two sections.)

1849
Colonel Cave Johnson Couts (1821-1874) comes to San Diego to act as an escort for the American-Mexican Boundary Commission from San Diego to Colorado River. The same year he is elected delegate to the State Constitutional Convention, thanks to machinations of several Kindred.

1850
Census sets non-Indian population at 650 city, 798 county. SDHS sketch of Old Town by Powell, 1850.

February, 1850
San Diego County is created as one of California's original 27 counties. It includes much of the Colorado and Mojave deserts, extending from the Pacific Ocean to the Colorado River and including all of present-day Imperial County and much of San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

March 18, 1850
William Heath Davis purchases 160 acres in "New Town" (now downtown San Diego). His home, originally located at State and Market Streets, is the oldest surviving structure in San Diego's New Town. Built on the East Coast and shipped around Cape Horn, it is a well-preserved example of a prefabricated "salt box" family home, now housing a museum at 4th and Island in the Gaslamp district.

March 27, 1850
An Act to Incorporate the City of San Diego is passed. First election establishes government by a Common Council and elected mayor. San Diego's first Mayor is Joshua Bean, brother of the famous Judge Roy Bean.

September 9, 1850
California is granted statehood by the United States of America.  Many Kindred in Washington moved to call "favors" to have the territory declared a state.

1851
Antonio Garra, a Cupeno leader residing at the village of Cupa, leads last of the major Indian revolts, prompted by the county's attempt to collect taxes from Indian tribes, at Don Juan Warner's Ranch. Garra's first objective is to destroy Camp Independence, the military camp established on the Colorado River for the protection of overland travelers. Garra is executed by firing squad, January 17, 1852.  Garra was counseled by Gangrel Tobias Jennings.

April 5, 1851
Cave Johnson Couts marries Ysidora, daughter of Juan Bandini, in Old Town, amid a fiesta that lasts a week. Rancho Guajome is a wedding gift from Abel Stearns, the bride's brother-in-law.

May 29, 1851
San Diego Herald publishes its first edition. Photo of front page.

January 3, 1853
San Diego County Board of Supervisors holds its first meeting.

1853
Liuetenant George Horatio Derby (1823-1861) arrives to divert San Diego River back into False Bay. Derby is remembered best as Squibob or John Phoenix, for his humorous pieces published in the San Diego Herald, and Phoenixiana, first printed in 1855. Read Derby's stories on American Memory (this is humor-not history).

1853
First known vigilantism occurs after indigent tailor John Warren is found bludgeoned to death by the jawbone of an ox. Townspeople, led by Ephraim Morse and Robert Israel, round up three Indians suspected of the crime. Without a trial, two are hanged in Old Town and the third escapes.

1854
Warner's Pass (San Pasqual) road is declared a public road by the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, serving as a main road between San Diego and the Colorado River until 1868, when shorter routes to the south, leading through the pass at Jacumba, began to be used by stagecoaches.

November 15, 1855
The "Old Spanish" lighthouse on Point Loma is illuminated for the first time 15 minutes before sunset. Photo of Point Loma Lighthouse. The site, 422 feet above sea level is frequently enshrouded in fog. A new lighthouse at sea level would replace it in 1891. The original lighthouse, restored in 1935, would become the nucleus of the Cabrillo Monument.

1856-57
Whaley House, built by Thomas Whaley, is the oldest brick structure in southern California. In addition to being the home of the Whaley family, it served variously as granary, store, court-house, and school and as the town's first theater. Photo of Whaley house in 1872.

August 13, 1857
The schooner Loma is launched, the first boat to be built in San Diego shipyards.

1857
James Birch establishes the "Jackass" mail route between San Diego and San Antonio; passengers must traverse the Oriflamme Canyon and Colorado Desert on muleback. Stage driver James E. Mason brings first overland mail to town and decides to settle here. 

1860
San Diego population is 731.

1860
San Diego Herald, San Diego's first newspaper, founded in 1851 by John Judson Ames, publishes its last edition.

1860
San Diego floods from heavy rains; state-wide storms.

1861
United States Civil War begins. It ends April 9, 1865 with General Lee's surrender at Appomattox.  During the Civil War, Kindred of the North and the South clashed as well, at the expense of entire regiments of soldiers.

1862
Smallpox epidemic kills hundreds of Indians and Mexicans in Southern California. Beginning in San Juan Capistrano, the epidemic reaches San Diego in 1863.  Once again, Cainites fear feeding and take protective measures, during which several Cainites meet Final Death.   Read about San Diego's Smallpox Fear of 1862-63.

1863-5
Floods of 1861-2 are followed by the Great Drought. During the fall and winter of 1862-63 only 3.87 inches of rain falls in San Diego County. Little more than five inches of rain falls in 1863-64. Ranchers drive their cattle to the mountains and into Baja California. The once-great cattle industry of California is virtually destroyed.

April 14, 1865
Abraham Lincoln is assasinated by John Wilkes Booth, while watching a performance of "Our American Cousin" at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C.  Booth, under the direction of a vengeful Cainite named Marcel Jeffries of the Ventrue Clan, was also a patsy, killing the President and taking the fall.

1865
First public school house opens in San Diego. Mary Chase Walker is its first teacher. She receives a salary of $65/month. After eleven months she quits teaching and marries Ephraim Morse, president of the school board.

1867
Photo of Old Town in 1867, just before the arrival of "Father Horton".

April 15, 1867
Alonzo Erastus Horton arrives from San Francisco on the paddle-wheel steamer Pacific. On that same day he gives the County Clerk $10 to cover the cost of a new election for the Board of Trustees, which is held on April 27th. On May 10, with local merchant Ephraim Morse as auctioneer, Horton acquires 800 acres of land, which would become New San Diego, for $265. SDHS copy of auction entry, documenting sale. Horton returns to San Francisco and opens a land sales office on Montgomery Street. Read more on "Horton's Vision for a New Town".

1868
Kimball brothers buy 26,400 acres of Rancho de la Nacion and lay out National City. Photo of Frank Kimball.

Feb 15, 1868
Ephraim Morse presents a resolution to the Board of Trustees of San Diego that land be set aside for a city park. Morse, Thomas Bush and Alonzo Horton select the land now known as Balboa Park.

October 10, 1868
San Diego's Weekly Union publishes its first edition near the Plaza in Old Town. Today's San Diego Union-Tribune would result from a merger of The San Diego Union and The Evening Tribune, founded Dec. 2, 1895. John D. Spreckels purchases the Union in 1890 and the Tribune in 1901. Spreckels' estate sells the newspapers in 1928 to Ira Clifton Copley of Illinois. Photo of San Diego Union building on 4th Street south of Broadway in 1872.

April 8, 1869
First post office is established and Jacob Allen is appointed postmeaster.

1869
Albert Seeley purchases the run-down Bandini Adobe in Old Town and spends six months in renovation of the old home to create the Cosmopolitan Hotel, building the Seeley Stables next door. Photo of Cosmopolitan Hotel in 1872 shows Seeley's Black Hawk livery stable at left.

1869
Alonzo Horton completes a wharf at the end of 5th Avenue, at a cost of about $45,000. On March 24, Horton sells $5,500 worth of commercial and residential lots in one day. His new town begins to boom. Horton Hall opens around Christmas 1869. This two-story brick building on the southeast corner of Sixth and F streets has shops downstairs and a meeting hall with 400 seats upstairs, serving as downtown's first public theater. Horton Hall burns in 1897 and is torn down shortly thereafter. Photo of Horton Hall.

1870
City of San Diego population is 2300.

1870
Black prospector Fred Coleman discovers placer gold near present-day Julian, setting off local "gold fever". First lode mine, the George Washington Mine, is discovered in February of 1870. By 1875, mines in the area produce over $2 million in gold. By 1876, many of the mines are closed, though significant gold production continues until about 1911. Read more about the "Gold Fever". ~ Photo of Julian , circa 1874.

Feb 4, 1870
San Diego becomes the first city west of the Mississippi to set aside land for an urban park. This 1440 acre tract becomes the site for City Park, now Balboa Park.

1870
Alonzo Horton opens his Horton House hotel on D Street (now Broadway) between Third and Fourth Streets (where the U. S. Grant Hotel now stands). Photo of Horton House. He sets aside a half block across the street as a plaza for his visitors (now Horton Plaza). Photo of original Horton Plaza (note Horton House at left).

October 24, 1870
George P. Marston and his 20-year-old son, George White Marston, arrive in San Diego. Young George takes a job as a clerk at Horton House - eventually becomes a successful businessman, civic leader and founder of the San Diego Historical Society.

1871
County archives are moved from the Whaley House in Old Town to the new seat of municipal government, the newly built County Courthouse in New San Diego. Photo of courthouse in 1872.

1871
Mount Hope Cemetery is established.

1872
Tourmaline is discovered near Pala, though previously known to the Indians. Mining increases by the turn of the century, stimulated by the high price of tourmaline in China. About 90% of the gem production in Southern California comes from five mines in inland San Diego County.

April 20, 1872
Fire sweeps Old Town, destroying key business buildings.

1872
Mission San Diego de Alcala is in disrepair. Photo of Mission in 1872.

1873
Thomas Scott of Pennsylvania Railroad sets off brief railroad boom with start of construction of Texas & Pacific Railroad from San Diego east; bond failure in Paris and Wall Street panic halts boom.

1874
San Diego Chamber of Commerce publishes its first City Directory, including 22 photos, promoting New San Diego as a place to live and listing schools, churches, lodges, and downtown businesses.

1874
The San Diego Society of Natural History, under the direction of Toreador Nathaniel Thomason, is founded at a meeting held in the office of local attorney and naturalist, Daniel Cleveland.

1875
Ah Quin, age 27, arrives in San Diego aboard a four-masted schooner wearing the traditional queue and carrying everything he owns on his back. Because of his diplomacy and mastery of English, Ah Quin quickly finds work as a labor contractor for the California Southern Railroad. Later Ah Quin is recognized as the unofficial Mayor of Chinatown, an area bounded by Island, J, 3rd and 4th.

1875
Murderer Pancho Lopez, a Sabbat ghoul, and a band of six ruthless bandits instigate gunfight at Gaskill's Store in Campo. Six men are killed, Luman Gaskill is wounded in the chest but survives. Read more about Luman Gaskill and his "Frontier Medicine".

1877
Severe drought in San Diego County.  Cainite feedings are again forced to be reduced, due to lack of strength from lack of water.

1877
Following a five-year partnership with Charles Hamilton, merchant George Marston establishes the first store of his own in a small wood structure on the northwest corner of what is now Fifth Avenue and Broadway.

December 5,1877
Lieutenant Reade of the U.S. Weather Bureau gives first public demonstration of the telephone in San Diego County.

1880
City of San Diego population is 2637.

1880
Frank Kimball of National City founds the San Diego County Fair. Kimball had been testing fruit trees here since 1869. He later serves as the State Commissioner of Horticulture from 1888 to 1898. begins operation.

1882
San Diego Telephone Company begins operation.  Ventrue William Dawson is behind its finance.

1882
San Diego's first public library opens.  Toreador Harold Griffin is its secret patron.

August 15, 1882
Russ School opens, an eight room, two-story building built with lumber donated by Hon. Joseph Russ. Photo of Russ School in 1898. It is replaced in 1907 by the "Gray Castle" which remains until 1976. A new San Diego High School now stands on the same site. See Journal of San Diego History, Vol. 28, Spring 1982.

1883
John Montgomery makes world's first "controlled flight" in a "heavier than air" craft, flying 600 feet in a glider at Otay Mesa. Photo of Montgomery with another of his gliders in 1905. Montgomery is later killed in a 1911 glider crash.

1884
Helen Hunt Jackson's romanticized novel Ramona is published, describing the tragic fate of a half-breed senorita and her Indian husband at the hands of prejudiced whites in northern San Diego County. The romantic work sells 600,000 copies in 60 years as the first novel about Southern California. Jackson may have been influenced by her visit to Ysidora Couts at Rancho Guajome (near present-day Vista) in the early 1880s, where the two had a falling out.

1884
Kate Sessions arrives from San Francisco bay area to teach at Russ School. She founds her nursery business in 1885.

Nov 15, 1885
Transcontinental railroad reaches San Diego. The first train of the California Southern departs from San Diego. On November 21, first train arrives from the east. Photo of National City railway terminal, 1888. ~ Read more about Frank Kimball's vision.

1885
First electric street lights installed in San Diego. Photo of arc light at F and Fifth Streets, 1887.

1885
Indiana railroad promoter Elisha S. Babcock and Chicago piano manufacturer H.L. Story buy the peninsula of Coronado for $110,000. Construction of Hotel del Coronado begins in 1886. At an auction on November 13, 1886, they sell a million dollars worth of Coronado lots to some of the 6,000 buyers on hand. With the proceeds, they establish a ferry system, water service and the Coronado Gas & Electric Co.

1886
San Diego population hits estimated 40,000 during boom year.

May, 1886
Construction begins on Cuyamaca Dam and a wooden flume 35 miles long to bring water to San Diego, completed in 1888. Photo of San Diego Flume under construction.

July 4, 1886
San Diego's first transit system, the San Diego Street Car Company is organized by a group led by Babcock and Story. First streetcars begin operating over two-mile track on Broadway. Read about and see SDHS photos of San Diego's early streetcars.

1887
San Diego land stampede begins. Railroad rate war leads to population boom (from 2,637 in 1880, about 40,000 in 1887). San Diego's Victorian Santa Fe railway station opens downtown, built by the California Southern Railroad. Photo of original railway station.

1887
John D. Spreckels visits San Diego on his yacht Lurline and begins investing in San Diego; he lives in San Francisco for several more years before moving to San Diego permanently just after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

Nov 19, 1887
San Diego's Electric Rapid Transit Company introduces the first electric street railway system in the western U.S., running from D Street downtown to Old Town along Arctic Street (now Kettner). Photo of Electric Rapid Transit cars.

1887
Jesse Shepard, local spiritualist, musician and author, builds his grand Victorian home known as the Villa Montezuma, now open to the public at 1925 K Street. Villa Montezuma's hours of operation.

1887
Harr Wagner moves his Golden Era literary magazine to San Diego from San Francisco, convinced that Southern California was the wave of the future and that San Diego soon would replace San Francisco as the new cultural center of the West. Photo of Golden Era magazine, 1887.

March, 1888
Sweetwater Dam, a major engineering feat and San Diego County's first major dam, is completed by the Kimball Brothers Water Company, supplying water for National City and Chula Vista. Photo of Sweetwater Dam under construction, 1887.

1888
San Diego's 1880s real estate boom ends. Photo shows dozens of "for sale" signs. By the end of the decade the population has dropped from 40,000 to 16,000. Read more about San Diego's Boom to Bust. Pennsylvanians posing for photo before departing San Diego.

1888
Entrepreneurs Elisha Babcock and H.L. Story open the world-famous Hotel del Coronado, which today remains the largest wooden oceanside structure in the world. Read more about the creation of the Hotel del Coronado. Photo of Hotel del Coronado nearing completion.

February 22, 1889
San Diego celebrates opening of the San Diego Flume. In honor of the event the Governor, R. W. Waterman, and other dignitaries ride down the flume in a flat-bottomed boat. Photo of Waterman and dignitaries riding flume. A reservoir created at Bear Creek with the Cuyamaca Dam, completed in 1887, provides the water source. The flume is an open wooden ditch which crossed ravines and canyons by means of high wooden trestles.

1890
City of San Diego's population drops to 16,156.

June 7, 1890
Cable cars begin operating in San Diego. Photo of cable car. The San Diego Cable Railway, which had been incorporated on July 22, 1889, took over the franchise of an unsuccessful electric line. Mission Cliffs Gardens line opens September 7, 1890. Cable company goes into receivership and the last cable cars run on October 15, 1892. Photo album with more than 20 of San Diego's early streetcars includes horse drawn cars, cable cars and electric streetcars.

1891
A new lighthouse is built on Point Loma at sea level, where it remains, along with a set of lights at Ballast Point to guide incoming boats. Photo of lighthouse.

1891
Coronado secedes from San Diego and incorporates.

1892
John D. Spreckels buys city transit system, local streetcar lines, through the San Diego Electric Railroad. Spreckels installs motors and converts the horse cars to electric cars.

1892
Fisher Opera House opens on Fourth Street between B and C, an opulent but practical house seating 1400 in the best theater on the West Coast. John C. Fisher was president of the Chamber of Commerce, owner of the Florence Hotel and active in the cable-car company.

1892
Kate Sessions, now known as the "Mother of Balboa Park", leases thirty-six acres in the northwest corner of what is then called "City Park", on which she puts a 10-acre nursery. For this privilege, she is to plant one hundred trees a year in the park and furnish three hundred more trees and plants yearly for planting throughout the city. She moves her nursery to Mission Hills in 1903. Read more about Kate Sessions.

1893
Wall Street panic leads to lengthy depression.  Cainites take advantage of the depression, citing it for the mysterious deaths of several citizens.

1893
Irving Gill arrives in San Diego. Read Journal of San Diego History articles about Irving Gill, architect.

1894
Bad times encourage Alonzo Horton to sell his half-block Horton Plaza park to the city for $10,000, stipulating that it must remain a park forever. Under the agreement, the city agrees to pay Horton $100 a month with no interest and no down payment. In the event of Horton's death, the city would acquire the property outright. The city fathers underestimate Horton's endurance. In April 1903, 89-year-old Horton cashes the final payment for a total of $16,000. Today Horton's park fronts Horton Plaza and has been renamed Horton Plaza Park.

1895
Bear Valley (now Wohlford) Dam is constructed to provide Escondido with a reliable source of water. The Southern California Mountain Water Company is organized, to build dams in the watersheds of the Otay-Hauser Mountain area. The Upper and Lower Otay, Morena and Barrett dams are completed in the late 1890s and early in the twentieth century.

March 13, 1897
State Normal School, the beginning of what is now San Diego State University, is founded for the training of elementary school teachers. The seven faculty and ninety-one students of the first "Normal School" class meets on November 1, 1898 in temporary quarters downtown while the first unit of the main building of the campus is under construction at Park Boulevard and El Cajon Boulevard. Photo of original section of Normal School about 1900.

May 9, 1897
The Woman's Home for single mothers in City Park burns down. The three-story Children's (or Orphan's) Home and nearby Woman's Home were both built in the turreted, Victorian, "Queen Anne modern Style" and located on the site where the U.S. Naval Hospital would be built in Balboa Park in 1922.

1899
Andrew Carnegie donates $60,000 to build San Diego Public Library, first of his libraries west of Mississippi, opens in 1902 at Eighth and E. Photo of Carnegie Library about 1900.

1899
State Normal School, a two-year teaching training college, opens in Normal Heights. Later becomes San Diego State College, then SDSU.

1899
Army establishes Fort Rosecrans, named after General Rosecrans, an 1842 graduate of the US Military Academy. It remains an Army base until transfer to the Navy in 1959 for the purpose of building a submarine base on Ballast Point. Photo of Fort Rosecrans.

1900
San Diego population is 17,700.

1900
Photo of San Diego and Harbor in 1900.

1900
Katherine Tingley moves the international headquarters of the Theosophical Society to 132 acres on Point Loma, where she established the Raja-Yoga School, built the first open air Greek Theater in America, and formed youth and adult symphony orchestras. Photo of Theosophical Headquarters and Raja-Yoga School.

1900
John D. Spreckels opens Tent City, just south of the Hotel del Coronado. Photo of Tent City and Hotel del Coronado. Spreckels, now owner of the Del, closes the hotel for renovations from June to December of 1900, and guests are put up in tents on the beach. The tents remain and Tent City becomes a popular summer resort until it is finally closed in 1939.

1902
Panama Canal construction is authorized in Congress.  Pushes in the right direction from several Kindred influence this descion.

1902
By decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, Indian inhabitants of Cupa, San Felipe and nearby villages around Warner Springs are evicted and removed to lands near the Pala Reservation.

October, 1902
At his own expense, George Marston travels East to hire a worthy landscape architect for the commission of designing San Diego's 1400 acre park, known then as City Park. Two months later, at Marston's invitation, Samuel Parsons, Jr., arrives in San Diego to study the park lands. Read more about Samuel Parsons, Jr., landscape architect.

1903
University of California Zoology Professor William E. Ritter, supported by Ellen Browning Scripps, her brother E.W. Scripps and Homer Peters, form the Marine Biological Association of San Diego, later to become the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

1903
Madam Ida Bailey who was later Embraced as a Toreador, opens up her own fancy parlor house, the Canary Cottage, at 530 4th Avenue. In the pale yellow house set behind a white picket fence, she and her girls "entertain" downtown's well-groomed gentlemen with fat wallets, including the mayor and the chief of police. Newspaper account of police raid on Stingaree, 1912.

1905
George White and Anna Gunn Marston move into their nearly completed home at the northwest corner of Balboa Park. This wonderful Arts and Crafts mansion, designed by Hebbard and Gill, is now open to the public. Marston house information and hours of operation.

1905
Sixty people are killed by a boiler explosion on gunship Bennington in San Diego harbor.  This was the story used to cover up a vicious Sabbat slaughter by the Camarilla.  Photo of Bennington after explosion.

1906
John D. Spreckels and local businessmen form corporation to build San Diego & Arizona Eastern Railroad. Construction begins on $18 million railway line to Yuma, partly through Baja California.

1907
Development of Presidio Park begins; Marston, Spreckels, Scripps and other investors begin buying Presidio property to preserve as a park.

1907
Imperial County secession leaves San Diego with its present county boundaries.

April 14, 1908
U.S. Navy's Great White Fleet makes San Diego its first U.S. stop on a worldwide tour, bringing more than 16,000 sailors into San Diego Harbor on 16 battleships, 7 destroyers and 4 auxiliary ships. Photo of Great White Fleet off Coronado at night.

May 9, 1908
Race car driver Barney Oldfield establishes new world record for a mile in Lakeside: 51 4/5 seconds.

1909
William E. Smythe founds the Little Landers colony (which later becomes San Ysidro) on 550 acres of land in the Tia Juana River Valley, with the dream of establishing the first of many utopian farm communities across the nation. Photo of a Little Landers produce wagon.

July 9, 1909
G. Aubrey Davidson, founder of the Southern Trust and Commerce Bank and president of the San Diego Chamber of Commerce, proposes that San Diego should stage an exposition in 1915 to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal.

1910
San Diego population is 39,578.

1910
Horton Plaza reopens with fountain designed by Irving J. Gill and his brother Louis.  Financial aid from three affluent Kindred is kept secret.

October 15, 1910
U.S. Grant Hotel opens downtown on former site of Horton House. On the same evening, Irving Gill unveils his electrically lighted fountain across the street in Horton Plaza. Photo of Grant Hotel across from Irving Gill's Horton Plaza fountain.

November 1, 1910
Park Commissioners give "City Park" the new name "Balboa Park". California State Legislature ratifies their decision, March 24, 1911, in the same piece of legislation which authorizes the use of the park for an exposition.

Jan 26, 1911
Glenn Hammond Curtiss makes world's first successful seaplane flight from waters off Spanish Bight, a mile-ling stretch between North Island and Coronado (now filled in). Photo of Curtiss with his seaplane. ~ Hear the story of that Curtiss flight. Curtiss starts a flying school on Coronado's North Island, inviting the Army and Navy to send officers for free instruction as pilots. North Island Aviation Camp is established by the Army Signal Corps. One of its students, Lt. Theodore G. Ellyson, USN, becomes Naval Aviator Number 1.

July 19, 1911
Panama-California Exposition groundbreaking ceremonies begin with a military mass in a Balboa Park canyon. Read more about the Exposition groundbreaking ceremonies.

1911
Francisco Madero's revolution breaks out on mainland of Mexico. Emma Goldman, the anarchist whose speeches incited the assassination of President McKinley, speaks to 200 in Germania Hall. Magonista radicals, supported and joined by American members of the I.W.W. (Wobblies), capture Mexicali on January 29; Tecate on March 12, holding it for a few days; led by Jack Mosby, a deserter from the U.S. Marines, and later by Caryl Ap Rys Price, Welsh soldier of fortune, they briefly occupy Tijuana from May 10 until routed by Mexican Federalists on June 22. Read about the Magonistas in our Journal of San Diego History.

1911
Construction begins in Balboa Park for the Panama-California Exposition. The Administration Building is the first to go up - begun on November 6, 1911 and completed in March 1912.

1912
Navy establishes a base on North Island, with three airplanes and three fliers. On Thanksgiving Day, 1912, the Army Signal Corps establishes Rockwell Field with an aviation school on North Island.

March 10, 1912
International Workers of the World ("Wobblies") protest downtown, drawing a crowd of nearly 5000 people. The fight for "free speech" ends in May when Emma Goldman leaves town and Ben Reitman is tarred and feathered. Photo of police using fire-hoses on rioters.

1912
William Kettner (1864-1930) is elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from California 11th District, 1913-1921.

August 23, 1912
Spreckels Theatre opens with 1915 seats (the year of the coming Exposition). It is the first modern commercial playhouse west of the Mississippi. "Bought and Paid For" was imported directly from Broadway for the occasion.

1913
Broadway Pier is constructed with a $1.7 million bond issued by the city. Photo of Broadway Pier in 1925.

1913
During the "Carnival Cabrillo", held from September 24 to September 27, a cross made of tiles from an abandoned Spanish fort, is placed on Presidio Hill where it remains today. Photo of the ceremony.

1914
Cabrillo Bridge opens on April 12, 1914. The first car is driven across with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, G. Aubrey Davidson, and Mayor Charles F. O'Neall as passengers. Photo of Cabrillo Bridge under construction (note roller coaster in background.)

1914
Santa Fe Depot construction begins June 15, replacing the earlier Grand Union Depot. It did not open until March 18, 1915 due to a dispute over the closure of B Street. Photo of Depot demolition.

1914
Marine Barracks is established as a model Marine camp on the Exposition grounds in Balboa Park by Col. Joseph Pendleton while the status of a permanent base is debated by the federal government. The Marine 4th Regiment, stationed on North Island, had been sent to San Diego in 1910 due to the Mexican Revolution. Marines move from Balboa Park to the new Dutch Flats installation in 1921.

1914
John D. Spreckels presents the Organ Pavilion in Balboa Park to the people of San Diego. Spreckels also hires Dr. Humphrey J. Stewart, a distinguished organist and composer, to give daily concerts throughout 1915. These concerts continued, at the expense of the Spreckels interests, until September 1, 1929. Photo of an early concert at Spreckels Organ Pavilion.

December 31, 1914
At midnight, President Woodrow Wilson presses a Western Union telegraph key in Washington, D.C. which turns on lights and touches off a display of fireworks to open the Panama-California Exposition in Balboa Park. Photo of crowd on Cabrillo Bridge, opening day at the Panama-California Exposition .

1915
Panama-California Exposition opens Jan 1st. Photo of crowd on Cabrillo Bridge opening day. Bertram Goodhue's Spanish Colonial architecture forever defines Balboa Park. Read all about the Exposition and take a "Postcard Tour".

May 31, 1915
Balboa Stadium opens adjacent to San Diego High School. With a capacity of 23,000, it is the largest municipal stadium in the nation at the time. Photo of Balboa Stadium.

January, 1916
Unusually heavy rains cause severe flooding in San Diego, washing out all but two of the city's 112 bridges and breaking the Lower Otay Dam. Twenty people drown as the Tia Juana River Valley floods and leaves 135 Little Landers settlers homeless. Photo of break in Sweetwater Dam. "Rainmaker" Charles Hatfield gets all the credit and the blame, but never gets paid the $10,000 city fathers had promised him. Photo of washed-out bridge in Old Town.

1916
Dr. Harry Wegeforth brings the San Diego Zoo into being when animals imported for the 1915 Panama-California Exposition are quarantined and not allowed to leave. He's reported to have exclaimed to brother Paul, "Wouldn't it be wonderful if we had a zoo." He put a notice in the newspaper, asking for support.

January 27, 1917
U.S. Navy opens the most powerful radio station in the Western Hemisphere at Chollas Heights.

1917
Banker Louis J. Wilde defeats George W. Marston in "Smokestacks vs. Geraniums" mayoral campaign. Read about "Smokestacks vs. Geraniums" in our Journal of San Diego History.

1917
World War I prompts San Diego military buildup. Camp Kearny is established, named in honor of Gen. Stephen Kearny who led the Army of the West to San Diego in 1846. It costs $4.5 million to build and is closed in 1920. Photo of Camp Kearny.

1917
U.S. Marine Base and Naval Hospital approved; governnment purchases North Island, its Rockwell Field is shared by the Army and Navy until 1939.

1918
"Spanish influenza" strikes, killing 368 people in San Diego. Over 600,000 Americans will die from the pandemic, over 20 million people worldwide. Photo of San Diego High School students wearing mandatory "flu masks".

1919
Prohibition makes Tijuana a boom town as thousands of Americans cross the border to drink and gamble at the race tracks. Photo of "the longest bar in the world" in Tijuana.

1919
United States Navy decides to make San Diego Bay home base for the Pacific Fleet.  Affluent Kindred in San Diego are pleased with this development.

1919
San Diego & Arizona Railroad is finally completed. John D. Spreckels drives the final golden spike. A thousand spectators observe. After thirteen years of labor (and $17,000,000) San Diego achieves a direct link with the East. Photo of Spreckels driving the golden spike. The railway never achieves commercial success, automobiles and trucks providing competition; it is eventually washed out by a flash flood and abandoned in 1976. 

1920
San Diego's population reaches 74,683.

1920
San Diego's Pacific Marine Construction company launches two concrete ships, the Cuyamaca and the San Pasqual. Begun during WWI but completed after the war ended, both ships serve as oil tankers. See Journal of San Diego History, Vol. 41, Spring 1995. Photo of Cuyamaca under construction June, 1920.

1922
Naval Hospital opens. Photo of Naval Hospital under construction.

1922
Lilian Rice, graduate of U.C. (Berkeley) School of Architecture, begins planning Rancho Santa Fe for the architectural firm of Richard Requa and Herbert Jackson.

1923
Marine Corps Recruit Depot opens. Photo of MCRD under construction. Naval Training Center on Point Loma is commissioned, manned by just 10 officers. Proposed in 1916 by William Kettner, it had gained support of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Assistant Secretary of Navy, when he visited San Diego during the Panama-California Exposition. Photo of NTC in 1920s.

1924
Creole Palace, "Harlem of the West", opens at Hotel Douglas, popular jazz spot into 1950s, demolished in 1985. Photo of Creole Palace.

July 4, 1925
Mission Beach Amusement Center (now Belmont Park) opens. The Giant Dipper roller coaster is a popular attraction. Photo of opening day at Belmont Park, 1925.

November 25, 1925
Southern California Counties Building burns down, just prior to the holding of a Fireman's Ball. This was one of the major 1915 Exposition Buildings in Balboa Park. It was replaced by the Natural History Museum. Photo of Southern California Counties Building in rubble, 1925.

1925
George W. Marston purchases land on Presidio hill to preserve the historic site of California's birthplace. Photo of Presidio hill in 1872.

February 27, 1927
The Fine Arts Gallery in Balboa Park, designed by William Templeton Johnson and funded by Appleton Bridges, is dedicated & opens to the public. It is now the San Diego Museum of Art.

May 9, 1927
Charles Lindbergh departs from Rockwell field, North Island, Coronado, in the Spirit of St. Louis, a custom M-1 monoplane built in San Diego by Ryan Airlines. Photo of Lindbergh and the Spirit of St. Louis. Lindbergh completes his historic solo nonstop flight from New York to Paris May 20-21.

April 11, 1927
Nino Marcelli conducts the inaugural concert of San Diego's Civic Symphony Orchestra (which he had organized) at Spreckels Theatre, at the invitation of Toreador Margot Nettles.

1927
Agua Caliente (hotel, casino, spa) opens in Tijuana (golf course and racetrack open in 1928). Photo of Agua Caliente racetrack in 1938.

1927
The iron ship Star of India, built on the Isle of Man in 1863, is towed to San Diego but remains in disrepair for the next 30 years. Photo of Star of India under sail, circa 1916.

1928
Lindbergh Field, San Diego's municipal airport, is dedicated. Photo of Lindbergh Field, 1935.

December 13, 1928
San Diego Historical Society is incorporated, with George White Marston as its founder and first president.

1929
Presidio Park opens, through the generosity of George W. Marston. On July 16th, the park is expanded to 40 acres, and the Serra museum is dedicated and given as a gift to the city. Photo of Serra Museum from Old Town.

1929
The 2,400-seat Fox Theatre opens during the heyday of the silver screen era, with a cost of $1.8 million; now home of the San Diego Symphony as Copley Symphony Hall. Photo of Fox Theatre marquee with Marie Dressler and Polly Moran in 1931 film.

1930
San Diego population is 147,897.

February, 1931
San Diego's State Teachers' College moves into the seven mission-style buildings of the present SDSU campus. In 1935, the Legislature removes the word "Teachers" from the name of the institution and, in 1960, the College becomes part of the newly created California State College system. It is renamed San Diego State University in 1971.

1932
Reuben H. Fleet moves Consolidated Aircraft (which becomes Convair) from Buffalo, New York. Fleet had organized the first U.S. Air Mail Service in 1918.

1933
The Natural History Museum opens in Balboa Park, designed by William Templeton Johnson.

1935
Consolidated Aircraft opens first plant along Pacific Highway to build 50 P-30 pursuit planes for Army. First PBY-1 is launched on test flight on San Diego bay in 1936 - Consair employment rises from 900 in 1935 to 3700.

May 28, 1935
California-Pacific International Exposition opens in Balboa Park. Chief architect Richard Requa has put Palisades buildings up in just a few months and completely remodeled the House of Hospitality.

1935
The Old Globe Theatre opens in Balboa Park (note the open air center).

1936
Bill Lane brings his Hollywood Stars baseball team to play in San Diego as the Pacific Coast League Padres. Lane field, at the corner of Broadway and Harbor Drive, is the home of the Padres from 1936-1957. Read stories told by PCL Padres in our Jornal of San Diego History. ~ Photo of Lane Field and San Diego harbor 1937. Hoover High School's Ted Williams plays ball with the Pacific Coast League Padres at Lane Field in 1936-37 before going on to win six American League batting titles for the Boston Red Sox.

1936
Construction of the Del Mar Fairgrounds begins as a Work Progress Authority project. Photo of Del Mar Fairgrounds .

June 24, 1937
Richard Archbold makes first transcontinental flight from San Diego to New York City in a seaplane built by Consair. The following year the Archbold expedition sets off from San Diego on a global survey of potential oceanic and continental air routes (pilots Steve Barinka, Russell Rogers). It arrives back in San Diego on July 6, 1939 as the first around-the-world seaplane flight at the equator.

1938
San Diego Civic Center (now the County Administration Center) opens, designed by architect Samuel Wood Hamill. Sculptor Donal Hord's monumental stone statue "Guardian of Water" still stands on the Harbor Drive side of the building. Read about Donal Hord and see his wonderful works of wood and stone.

March 12, 1938
Hitler occupies Austria.  He is backed by several vicious Kindred in Europe, but Cainites that had migrated to America from the lands near Germany are outraged.

Sept 1, 1939
Germany invades Poland and war breaks out in Europe.

1940
San Diego population is 203,341.

December 7, 1941
Japanese planes bomb Pearl Harbor.  At the urging of several Kindred highly placed in Washington, America enters World War II.  Photo San Diego Union headlines. ~ Hear about local troop movements from our SDHS Oral History Archives. ~ Read about the black cavalry at Camp Lockett. from our Journal of San Diego History. ~ Read how the war affects San Diego's Japanese American community from our Journal of San Diego History.

1941
Robert Oscar Peterson opens his first drive-in restaurant called Oscar's. (He later founds Jack In The Box in 1951.) Photo of photographer Charles Schneider setting up Oscar's ad photo.

1941
Construction begins on Linda Vista defense housing project. The biggest construction job in SD's history - McNeil and Zoss contract to build 3000 units in 300 days for $9,070,000. Photo of construction at Linda Vista defense housing project.

1941
San Diego Naval Air Station begins training pilots for U.S. Air Force (a total of 31,400 during World War II).

1942
Navy acquires Rancho Santa Margarita for Camp Pendleton Marine base on 126,000 acres north of Oceanside. Photo of Marine maneuvers on beach at Camp Pendleton.

1943
Consolidated Aircraft merges with Vultee to become Convair. Photo of camouflaged plant, August 1945. ~ Photo of overhead camouflage netting being installed.

1944
Navy begins emergency construction of aqueduct to bring Colorado River water to San Diego. San Diego County Water Authority is formed.

June 6, 1944
Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied western Europe begins in Normandy, France.  Cainite influence is found in the invasion plan.

1945
Senate ratifies a treaty giving a portion of Colorado River water to Mexico.

1939
Naval Air Station, Miramar develops on the site of Camp Kearny. In 1939 the Navy took ownership of 423 acres of Camp Kearny and the field was commissioned Naval Auxiliary Air Station, Camp Kearny Feb. 20, 1943. By the end of the war, the base covered 1101 acres and all facilities were combined and commissioned as the Marine Corps Air Station, Miramar May 1, 1946. Expansion begins in 1951 to develop the base for jet aircraft and it is commissioned as United States Naval Air Station, Miramar on April 1, 1952. It becomes the Fighter Command for the Pacific Fleet in 1973, adding the "Top Gun" Flight School, and becomes the Airborne Early Warning Wing Command. In 1998, the Naval Air Station closes and it again becomes a Marine Corps Air Station. [courtesy of Steve Schoenherr

1945
World War II ends. Photo of V-J Day downtown. San Diego soon experiences recession.

1945
San Diego voters approve 2 million dollar bond issue to begin development of Mission Bay. SDHS image of plans for Mission Bay.

1946
San Diego assumes responsibility to finance completion of San Diego Aqueduct. Voters approve $2 million water bonds and annexation of County Water Authority to Metropolitan Water District.

1946
George White Marston dies at age of 95.

1947
San Diego Aqueduct opens, bringing first Colorado River water to San Diego. Photo of Fire Hill Tunnel under construction, 1946.

1948
Palomar Observatory opens in June. Construction on the 200-inch mirror had begun in 1934. Read SDHS history on the Palomar Observatory.

1948
Sit-in at U.S. Grant Hotel to protest racial discrimination. SDHS Oral History on Grant sit-in by Dr. Jack Kimbrough.

1949
San Diego's last electric streetcar completes its run from Union Depot. "Fiesta Bahia" celebrates opening of Mission Bay Park.

1950
San Diego's population reaches 334,387.

1951
Passenger service on San Diego & Arizona Railway is discontinued.

1951
Jack in the Box gets its start. Robert O. Peterson opens first drive-through restaurant at 63rd Street and El Cajon Boulevard. Peterson had previously operated Oscars.

1952
California Western University is founded at site of Tingley's Theosophical Society on Point Loma.

1954
San Diego's new Public Library opens. Photo of library.

1954
University of San Diego is founded in Linda Vista. SDHS aerial photo of USD under construction.

1956
General Dynamics takes over Convair. Campus in San Diego's La Jolla area proposed for a University of California site.

June 11, 1957
First test of USAF Atlas A missile is launched, built in San Diego by Convair. First successful test firing occurs on Dec 17, 1957 (on the 54th anniversary of the Wright brothers' first flight), the missile landing in the target area after a flight of some 500 miles. The first operational missile, the Atlas D, will serve for launching Mercury manned spacecraft into orbit. Atlas becomes the workhorse of the space program, launching John Glenn in Mercury 7 for the nation's first manned orbital flight in 1962.

1957
Minor League Padres begin playing at Westgate Park in Mission Valley. SDHS aerial photo of Westgate Park taken January, 1958.

1957
Theodore Seuss Geisel, long-time La Jolla resident writing as Dr. Seuss, publishes "The Cat in the Hat", changing the way American children learn to read. He had been given a 225-word list, with a challenge to develop a book which would improve children's literacy. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1984 and two Academy Awards, Seuss was author and illustrator of 44 children's books.

1958
Interstate Highway 8 opens in February, following ancient Indian trails through Mission Valley.

1958
Construction begins on San Diego's second aqueduct.

1959
Architect Lloyd Ruocco founds what will become Citizens Coordinate for Century 3 environmental group.

1960
San Diego County population tops 1 million; city population hits 573,224. State approves proposition to deliver water from northern California as far south as San Diego.

1961
American Football League Chargers open first season at Balboa Stadium. Photo of Chargers playing in Balboa Stadium.

1961
Mission Valley Shopping Center opens. SDHS aerial photo of Mission Valley Shopping Center.

1963
Jonas Salk establishes the Jonas Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla. The 26-acre campus, designed by architect Louis I. Kahn, overlooks the Pacific Ocean on Torrey Pines Mesa. SDHS aerial photo of Salk Institute.

1964
University of California at San Diego opens 1,000-acre La Jolla campus to first class of undergraduate students. SDHS photo of UCSD library designed by William L. Pereira Associates, 1970.Roger Revelle is main force in founding UCSD and the first of its colleges is named in his honor.

1964
City Administration Building opens downtown at Community Concourse.

1964
Sea World opens in Mission Bay Park. SDHS aerial photo of Sea World, March 1964.

1965
Archeological digs begin at Presidio Park above Old Town, eventually revealing foundations and artifacts from the earliest Spanish inhabitation of the 1700s.

August 28, 1965
Beatles perform, machinated by Toreador Heidi Krandle, before 18,000 adoring fans at Balboa Stadium. Photo of Beatles press conference in San Diego.

1965
Mexico authorizes maquiladora factories, Mexican assembly or manufacturing operations that can be wholly or partially owned and managed by non-Mexican companies.

1966
Bob Breitbard completes Sports Arena in Midway area.

1967
$27 million San Diego Stadium opens in Mission Valley as home to the San Diego Chargers and the San Diego State University Aztecs football team. Stadium is renamed for San Diego Union sports editor Jack Murphy in 1981; Qualcomm in 1997). SDHS aerial photo of San Diego Stadium under construction.

1968
The minor-league San Diego Padres become a Major League Baseball team and play their first game in the new San Diego Stadium.

1968
Committee of 100 leads successful bond drive for first historic reconstruction in Balboa Park (Casa del Prado completed 1971). Photo of Bea Evenson in front of Casa del Prado.

1969
San Diego–Coronado Bay Bridge opens, replacing ferry service across San Diego Bay. Photo of Coronado Bridge under construction.

1969
National League Padres begin playing at San Diego Stadium.

1969
Save Our Heritage Organisation (SOHO) launches preservation drive for old Victorian buildings.

1969
San Diego hosts year-long festival to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the founding of California on Presidio Hill. Old Town becomes a state park. Hear State Senator Mills tell about the creation of Old Town State Park. from our Oral History Archives.

1970
San Diego becomes California's second-largest city, with a population of 697,471.

1970
San Diego City Council dedicates 6,000 acre La Jolla Underwater Park. Photo of La Jolla Cove circa 1871.

1970
San Diego population reaches 696,769.

1970
Mayor and council members indicted in Yellow Cab scandal.

1970
Mexican-American community campaigns for creation of Chicano Park beneath San Diego-Coronado Bay Bridge. Read Journal of San Diego History article about creation of Chicano Park.

1971
Rebuilt Casa del Prado opens in Balboa Park. Read SDHS history of the Casa del Prado.Photo of Bea Evenson during construction.

1972
San Diego is chosen as the site of Republican National Convention; in a last-minute about-face, Republicans announce plans to move convention site to Miami Beach. See Dick run. The loss of the convention prompted Mayor Pete Wilson to declare San Diego "Amerca's Finest City".

1973
Reuben H. Fleet Space Theater opens to the public in Balboa Park. Fleet dies in 1975 at the age of 88.

1974
San Diego City Council designates "swim-suit optional" zone at Black's Beach (rescinded in 1977). Photo of Black's Beach.

1975
Mayor Pete Wilson launches plans for a dramatic redevelopment of downtown San Diego, creating Centre City Development Corporation.

1975
Vietnamese refugees temporarily housed at Camp Pendleton.

1976
The fully restored Star of India puts to sea for the first time in fifty years, under the command of Captain Carl Bowman.

1976
The city's redevelopment arm, the Centre City Development Corporation, is established.

1977
University Towne Centre shopping mall opens near UCSD.

February 22, 1978
Electric Building (1915 Exposition's Commerce and Industries Building, now Casa de Balboa) burns down, destroyed by arson fire. Read SDHS history of the Casa de Balboa. ~ Photo of firefighters putting out the fire.

September 25, 1978
One of the worst air crashes in U.S. history occurs in San Diego in 1978 when a Pacific Southwest Airlines commercial jet approaching San Diego airport is struck in mid-air by a small Cessna, killing 144 people, including seven on the ground. Twenty-two dwellings are damaged or destroyed.

March 8, 1978
World-famed Old Globe Theatre in Balboa Park burns to ground in arson fire. Photo of Old Globe fire.

1978
California voters approve Proposition 13, throwing local municipal finances into chaos.

1980
San Diego population reaches 852,000.

1980
The San Diego Trolley, first line in the city's new light-rail transit system, is dedicated. 1981 - San Diego Trolley begins service to border; 1985, East Line; 1990 Bayside Line; 1992, North Line; 1998, Mission Valley Line.

1980
Dennis Conner brings the America's Cup to the West Coast, winning the cup in 1980, 1987 and 1988.

1981
Mayor Pete Wilson presides over Centre City Development Corporation ground-breaking for the Horton Plaza retail redevelopment project.

1982
After a massive fund-raising drive to rebuild it, a new, three-theater Old Globe complex opens in Balboa Park. Pete Wilson elected to U.S. Senate, first U.S. senator from San Diego.

1983
Britain's Queen Elizabeth II unveils a bust of Shakespeare at the rebuilt Old Globe Theatre in Balboa Park.

1983
Roger Hedgecock elected mayor (resigns in 1985 over campaign fund-raising scandal).

1983
Plaza Bonita shopping center opens in National City.

1984
Padres win National League Pennant; World Series games first played in San Diego.

1984
Gunman opens fire in a San Ysidro McDonald’s restaurant, killing 21 people.

1985
Horton Plaza shopping center opens as $140 million cornerstone of downtown redevelopment. Photo of Horton Plaza on opening night.

1985
67 homes are destroyed in Normal Heights fire.  Again a coverup for hostile Sabbat actions.

1985
Restored U.S. Grant Hotel opens downtown; San Diego Symphony moves into Symphony Hall (former Fox Theatre).

1986
Maureen O'Connor is elected as San Diego's first woman mayor; North County Fair shopping center opens in Escondido.

1986
The San Diego Supercomputer Center opens at the University of California, San Diego, providing the national research community with access to the highest-performance computers available.

1987
Father Joe Carroll opens St. Vincent de Paul Village downtown, with services for the homeless.

1987
Skipper Dennis Conner, at the helm of "Stars and Stripes", wins the America's Cup for the San Diego Yacht Club, defeating Australia's "Kookaburra". He wins again in 1988.

Jan 26, 1988
San Diego hosts its first Super Bowl, in San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium. Washington Redskins beat Denver Broncos 42-10.

1988
America's Cup yacht race is held in San Diego; again in 1992 and 1995.

1989
San Diego Convention Center opens.

1989
First San Diego River Improvement Project completed on reclaimed Mission Valley river banks.

1990
San Diego population is 1,110,549 and the population of San Diego Region is 2,498,016.

1990
California State University, San Marcos, opens.

1990
Former San Diego Mayor Pete Wilson is elected Governor of California, the state's first governor from San Diego. Serves

1992
General Dynamics-Convair begins closing local operations.

July, 1993
U.S. Navy announces Naval Training Center to be closed under terms of the Base Closure and Realignment Act of 1990.

1994
California Center for the Arts, Escondido, opens.

1995
ARCO Olympic Training Center opens in Chula Vista.

January 29, 1995
San Diego Chargers lose by a score of 49-26 to the San Francisco 49ers at Super Bowl XXIX in Miami.

1995
Reconstructed House of Charm opens in Balboa Park. Read history of the House of Charm.

1995
Mayor Susan Golding announces plans for the expansion of San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

1996
Fire destroys 54 homes in Carlsbad's Harmony Grove.

May 31, 1996
San Diego Symphony officially goes bankrupt (reopens 1998).

August 12-15, 1996
San Diego hosts Republican National Convention, first national political convention in San Diego history. Photo of woman's shoes designed for the convention.

April 30, 1997
Naval Training Center on Point Loma closes to all active military use.

1997
Reconstructed House of Hospitality opens in Balboa Park. Read history of the House of Hospitality.

1998
Padres win National League Pennant; lose World Series to New York Yankees.

1998
Super Bowl held in (renamed) Qualcomm Stadium; Coors Amphitheatre opens in Chula Vista

1998
Voters approve convention center expansion, downtown Padres ballpark, $1.5 billion city school bonds.

1999
Legoland California opens in Carlsbad.

1999
San Diego Presidio ruins are covered up once again to preserve them for posterity and future archaeological digs.