-
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. -
1800
First American ship, Betsy, under command of Capt. Charles Winship, arrives at San Diego. -
1800
Earthquake of 6.5 magnitude hits San Diego region -
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. -
1812
War of 1812 between United States and Great Britain begins. -
1812
Earthquake destroys the San Diego Mission church, which is reconstructed in 1813. -
1813
Work begins on Mission Dam and aqueduct, finished in 1816-17. -
1817
The Traveler departs with California’s first shipment of grain. -
Period: to
1820-1830
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. -
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. -
1822
Mexican flag is raised over the Presidio. California swears allegiance to Mexico. -
1823
Los Peñasquitos, 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 Valley. -
1828
Fur trappers Sylvester Pattie and his son James Ohio Pattie are imprisoned by Gov. Echeandia. Sylvester dies in jail and his son is eventually released to vaccinate thousands against smallpox. -
1829
Boston trader Henry Delano Fitch elopes with Josefa Carrillo from San Diego. -
Period: to
1832-1833
Malaria epidemic kills many Indians. Secularization Act leads to closing of missions. -
1834
Juan Bandini and Jose Hijar arrive on the brig Natalie with 140 colonists. -
1834
13 votes are cast in San Diego’s first pueblo election. Juan Osuna is elected first alcalde (mayor) over Pio Pico. -
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. -
1835
The Mexican military and last residents abandon the Presidio and the site becomes a ruin. -
1837
Juan Bandini leads rebellion, captures Los Angeles. -
Period: to
1837-1839
Smallpox epidemic kills many Indians. Indians plunder San Diego back-country ranches. -
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. -
1845
New Governor Pio Pico orders land confiscation and sale of the California missions. California is divided into 2 districts; southern district from San Luis Obispo south. -
1846
United States declares war on Mexico, invades Mexico from the east, reaching San Diego in December. -
1846
Marine detachment from the sloop-of-war Cyane raises the first American flag in the Plaza of Old Town San Diego. -
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. -
1846
General Stephen Watts Kearney's "Western army" fought a bloody battle with General Andres Pico and his Mexican-California army in the SAN Pasquale Valley near present-day Escondido.The United States has suffered many casualties, including nineteen dead Americans and many more wounded.The Mexicans killed six soldiers in the battle and many more were wounded.Although the United States fought the California War, the Battle of SAN Pascual proved to be an important victory for California. -
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. -
1848
The discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill starts the California Gold Rush. -
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. -
1850
Census sets non-Indian population of San Diego at 650, County of San Diego at 798. -
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. -
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. -
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. -
1850
California is granted statehood by the United States of America. -
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. -
1851
San Diego Herald publishes its first edition. -
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. -
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. -
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. -
1853
San Diego County Board of Supervisors holds its first meeting. -
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. -
1855
The “Old Spanish” lighthouse on Point Loma is illuminated for the first time 15 minutes before sunset. 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. -
Period: to
1856-1857
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. -
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. -
1857
The schooner Loma is launched, the first boat to be built in San Diego shipyards. -
1858
San Diego is hit with a 75mph Category 1 hurricane, the biggest on record, causing some homes to collapse and boats to wash ashore but no deaths. -
1860
San Diego Herald, San Diego’s first newspaper, founded in 1851 by John Judson Ames, publishes its last edition. -
1860
San Diego population is 731. San Diego County population is 4324. -
1861
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. -
1862
Smallpox epidemic kills hundreds of Indians and Mexicans in Southern California. Beginning in San Juan Capistrano, the epidemic reaches San Diego in 1863. -
1862
Earthquake of 6.0 magnitude hits San Diego region -
Period: to
1863-1865
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. -
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. -
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. -
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. Horton returns to San Francisco and opens a land sales office on Montgomery Street. -
1868
Kimball brothers buy 26,400 acres of Rancho de la Nacion and lay out National City. -
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. -
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. -
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. -
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. -
1869
First post office is established in New San Diego. Dr. Jacob Allen is appointed postmaster. -
1870
City of San Diego population is 2300. San Diego County population is 4951. -
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. -
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). He sets aside a half block across the street as a plaza for his visitors (now Horton Plaza). -
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
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. -
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. -
1872
Mission San Diego de Alcala is in disrepair. -
1872
Fire sweeps Old Town, destroying key business buildings. -
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 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 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.