For fifty-two years (1769-1821), San Diego served as an outpost for the Spanish empire in Mexico. Discovered in 1542 by Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo and named sixty years later (1602) by Sebastian Vizcaino, the port of San Diego was first occupied in 1769 under the military leadership of Governor Gaspar de Portola and the spiritual guidance of Father Junipero Serra, O.F.M. This combined effort resulted in the occupation and settlement of Alta California by means of missions, presidios, and pueblos, but Spain was never able to control the area effectively. Weakened at home by a series of worldwide wars and suffering in the Americas from internal conflicts and revolutionary trends, she began to lose her tenuous hold on such distant ports as San Diego by the end of the eighteenth century. Spanish soldiers, far from the seat of central government, often went unpaid and received little in clothing, provisions, or arms. Missionaries were virtually independent. Between 1769 and 1774, the walled settlement on Presidio Hill developed into a few clustered buildings surrounding the beginnings of a small chapel. The soldiers had few contacts with the outside world and received little sustenance from the crops grown at Mission San Diego de Alcala, six miles inland. Since supplies coming in from Mexico were infrequent, the presidial community struggled for survival until the 1790s, when ships proved a more satisfactory means of providing relief than the overland routes through Baja California and Sonora. Grain and the raising of cattle provided the basis for an agricultural economy. The soldiers and civilians, however, knew little about crop rotation, fertilization, and other means to increase production. Instead they soon depleted the soil on the hill and in Mission Valley. The missionaries, although better trained in farming methods, did not anticipate the erratic rainfall of San Diego which alternated between droughts and floods, so their production seldom exceeded their needs. Nevertheless, the presidio residents did their best and the population had increased to nearly 200 persons by 1790. Early in 1821 there were still no houses on the present site of Old Town. The commandant of the presidio, Captain Francisco Maria Ruiz, had put in a garden aater called the Soto garden), several soldiers had little patches of farms at the entrance to Mission Valley, and Juan Mariner had a garden and vineyard on the north side of the river near Tecolote Canyon. Santiago Arguello also cultivated some land in the Canada de la Cruz or Canada del Diablo, the first canyon northeast of the presidio.
The earliest houses outside the presidio enclosure were those begun in mid-1821 on the flat area below and towards the west. Perhaps the first was that of Captain Ruiz adjacent to his garden. Apparently no others were yet completed by 1822 when the changeover of government from Spain to Mexico occurred. Representatives of the new republic supervised the ceremony held at the presidio which acknowledged the government of Mexico and raised its flag. Presidial soldiers, their families, and mission representatives were on hand for the festivities. The only sadness was experienced by soldiers who had to cut off their long braids-symbols of the Spanish regime. During the mid-1820s and early 1830s several houses were built to form the nucleus of the Old Town community. They were located in the area west of the plaza to the north and south on paths or lanes which were not generally named before 1840. 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 were all finished by 1824. The house of Boston trader Henry Delano Fitch, husband of Josefa Carrillo, was probably completed in 1825 or 1826. Between 1827 and 1830 several other structures were built around the plaza including those of Juan Rodriguez, Jose Antonio Estudillo, Juan Bandini, Dona Tomasa Alvarado, and Rosario Aguilar. Archaeological work by the University of San Diego has recently uncovered a row of buildings having the same floor plan, built apparently by Jose Manuel Machado during the early 1830s. Others constructed during the Mexican period included those of Juan Maria Osuna and British sea captain Joseph Snook. Spanish maritime laws had forbidden foreign ships to stop at Alta California ports, but these regulations were relaxed under Mexican control and numerous French, British, American, Dutch and Russian ships put in at San Diego to trade or take on water and supplies. Numerous ships' logs and manifests testify to the continuing international contact. A number of non-Mexicans left their ships and remained in southern California. These ships also took on local cargo. For example, Jose Maria Estudillo wrote to Francisco de Paula Marin in Honolulu on August 26, 1828, that Auguste Duhaut-Cilly, Captain of the French frigate Les Heros was leaving San Diego enroute to Asia with a long stop due in Honolulu. Estudillo was sending his old friend a box of fresh plants, excellent peaches, and a medicinal herb from Peru called canchalagua (Eiithraea chilerlsis).
During the early years of the Mexican period, San Diego became the capital of both Baja and Alta California. Governor Jose Maria Echeandia (1825-1831) moved the capital from Monterey to the southern port because of its central location between the two provinces and his personal preference for San Diego. He faced a number of problems during his administration including the proposed secularization of the missions, unrest among soldiers and Indians, and the arrival of two overland parties of Americans (those of Jedediah Smith and James Ohio Pattie). With the arrival of Brigadier General Jose Figueroa as governor in January, 1833, the capital was returned to Monterey. The legislature assembled there on May 1, 1834, and three days later the new governor received an appeal from San Diegans asking for a mayor, four councilmen, and a city attorney. The community now consisted of 432 people and was ready for official pueblo status. Mission San Diego had been officially secularized in April, 1834, and placed under civilian control on September 30. Joaquin Ortega became administrator of the mission properties in April, 1835. Some of the Indians gathered in a village called San Dieguito and some moved into the Old Town area as artisans and gardeners. The one-man rule of the pueblo by the presidio commandant became unsatisfactory for the local citizenry and they asked for a change. On June 4, 1834, the legislature approved the request and sent it to Mexico City. Governor Figueroa, a diplomat, asked San Diego's commandant Santiago Arguello to comment on the petition. He replied that he agreed with it, had been a party to its preparation and, in fact, hoped for its success. Approval of the new local government was given on January 1, 1835, following election of Juan Maria Osuna alcalde (mayor), Juan Bautista Alvarado and Juan Maria Marron, first and second regidores (councilmen), and Henry Delano Fitch sindico procurador (city attorney). This constituted the first ayuntamiento (town council) of the civilian pueblo of San Diego. Commandant Arguello installed the new alcalde by giving him the staff of office on January 1. The town council held its first meeting on that date and Osuna asked Arguello for an inventory of the documents in the "archives of San Diego." The position of alcalde was considered an honor and a duty-which meant no salary-and involved executive, judicial and legislative functions. In addition to calling council meetings, issuing passports, assigning properties, and supervising education, the alcalde served as chief judicial officer of the pueblo. He often made his decision immediately on cases brought before him and indicated appropriate settlements or punishments on the spot. He was sometimes assisted by a group of local citizens called hombres buenos who were appointed as a kind of jury in certain cases. The councilmen sometimes served in this capacity. The ayuntamiento of San Diego met frequently to consider requests for land, matters of school support, care of prisoners, settlement of private debts, supervision of water resources, cemeteries, common pastures, and the levying of taxes. Town revenues came from leasing public lands (propios), charging fees for land grants, and taxing the use of branding irons and butchering of cattle. Taxes were also levied on entertainment, saloons, stores, commercial packages, and imported liquors. Other regulations prohibited the use of firearms within the pueblo with a fine of 4 reales (50 cents) and loss of the weapon. Gambling, especially in public, was forbidden with penalties. The city attorney had to oversee prisoners in jail, put offenders to work on pueblo needs, and, when funds were low, place them with private citizens where they worked in exchange for meals. Richard Henry Dana, visiting California from Boston aboard the hide and tallow trader Pilgrim, saw San Diego in the summer of 1835 with shipmate Jack Stewart, who later married local resident Rosa Machado. Dana commented that on their first visit ashore they, "sailor-like, steered for the first grog-shop. This was a small mud building, of only one room, in which were liquors, dry and West India goods, shoes, bread, fruits, and everything which is vendible in California. It was kept by a Yankee [Thomas Wrightington], a one-eyed man, who belonged formerly to Fall River, came out to the Pacific in a whale-ship, left her at the Sandwich Islands [Hawaii] and came to California. . . the liquor was a real (12l/2 cents) a glass...." For further recreation Dana and Stewart rented some horses and rode out to the mission where they ate "baked meats, frijoles stewed with peppers and onions, boiled eggs, and California flour baked into a kind of macaroni" which, "together with the wine, made the most sumptuous meal" they had eaten since Boston. In 1837 the decision came from Mexico City to change the federal system to a centralized form of government. The new Constitution adopted the previous year reached out to local communities to the degree that councils elected by the people were abolished and a juez de paz (justice of the peace) took over the community functions deemed essential. A district officer called a prefect was headquartered at Los Angeles with responsibility for San Diego. Because of the political rivalry between southern and northern California over succession to the governorship, and local dissatisfaction with the system, the initial appointee as prefect did not take office until April, 1839. Several interim prefects succeeded him until Santiago Arguello of San Diego, then residing on his Rancho Tia Juana a few miles south, was appointed to the office in June, 1840. Arguello appointed a treasurer for the southern pueblo although no expenditures could be made without the prefect's approval. Locally, the justice of the peace continued to function and issued various bandos or decrees. A bando of Henry Fitch dated January 12, 1840, prohibited the carrying of knives, pistols, and clubs. It also required "sweeping in houses as much for cleanliness as for health" and warned as follows: "No person without an occupation or means of maintaining himself permitted in the pueblo. No breaking of colts permitted in the pueblo; nor bringing in of cattle for slaughter unless with lariat. Hogs, fierce dogs, or cows liable to do damage are not permitted." On March 8, 1840, Juan Maria Osuna's bando included among other regulations that "Hides not having the 'venta' of the owner of the cattle with the public brand are liable to be seized. Weights and measures are to be stamped according to the Estudillo bando of 1837. Wine or brandy introduced in barrels must be reported to the justice of the peace. " Local officials often had to act as go betweens when San Diegans wrote to the Governor over the heads of their representatives. Juan Bandini was constantly involved in intrigue, especially in opposing recognition of Juan Bautista de Alvarado of Monterey as Governor over Carlos Carrillo of San Diego, a champion of southern interests. A stream of correspondence moved back and forth between San Diego and Monterey which had to do with the bandos and other documents which had come into the hands of officials under the influence of Juan Bandini. By the time Manuel Micheltorena assumed the governorship in 1842, opposition to his appointment was minimal. Nevertheless, when General Micheltorena and his entourage of several hundred soldiers (including a number of convicts) landed in San Diego, American observer Alfred Robinson, watching from the shore, commented that "they presented a state of wretchedness and misery unequaled. Not one individual among them possessed a jacket or pantaloons.... These were to be the enforcers of justice and good government." By 1843 another switch in Mexican politics caused a revision in the system of municipal government and the prefecture system was abolished. Although a decree of December, 1843, indicated that first and second alcaldes together with ayuntamientos should be elected in San Diego and seven other pueblos, Juan Maria Marron was still referred to as juez de paz in 1844. In another governmental change, which left Pio Pico as civil governor and Jose Castro as military commander in 1845, San Diego again became part of a prefect system with Santiago Arguello serving as sub-prefect for the district in July, 1845. Juan Maria Marron served as the elector from San Diego to the departmental junta (legislative committee) held in Los Angeles on October 6. 1845. The southern pueblo numbered about 450 Spanish-speaking persons at this time.
The coming of the Mexican War changed the entire structure of society in Old Town. Local residents were suddenly infiltrated by newcomers from the military forces of the United States. As early as December, 1846, William H. Emory wrote about San Diego: The town consists of a few adobe houses, two or three of which only have plank floors. . . the rain fell in torrents as we entered the town, and it was my singular fate here. . . to be quartered in. . . a miserable place of one room. In his journal recording events of the Army of the West led by General Stephen Watts Kearny, staff surgeon Dr. John S. Griffin said, "On the 12th about 4 p.m. the troops marched into San Diego. The garrison is in a wretched state of police. The quarters, like all Mexican houses, are ill-ventilated, cold and damp...." In contrast, however, Captain Samuel F. Dupont of the U.S.S. Cyane, who had resided in the home of Juan Bandini during August, 1846, found Old Town extremely hospitable. He commented that: "These people are all intelligent, and make it a much more agreeable place than Monterey, where I saw no society whatever." When the Mormon Battalion arrived in 1847 they hired themselves out to the townspeople. They made a whitewash and used it throughout the town to brighten it up. They also built a bakery, fired bricks, built log pumps, dug wells, did blacksmithing and repaired carts. The soldiers had arrived too late to participate in the Mexican War so their time was well spent in helping Old Town make some needed improvements. On February 2, 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed ending the war between Mexico and the United States. California, as a part of the land ceded by Mexico, was placed under military jurisdiction until territorial status or statehood could be achieved. An international boundary commission was also set up to survey the line from Texas to the Pacific coast. To complicate matters, James Marshall discovered gold on the American River in late January, 1848, and touched off the migration of numerous gold-seekers during the next few years. Many passed through San Diego via the southern route on their way to the northern mining areas. When Lieutenant Thomas W. Sweeny arrived in 1849 with the United States Army, he said the town consisted of "a collection of dilapidated adobe buildings, affording scanty shelter to a population of three or four hundred Spaniards [Mexicans] and Indians." He and other officers and soldiers could not get adequate housing. According to Brevet Major Samuel P. Heintzelman, many residents had left town by the spring of 1849 for the gold fields, leaving their homes to disrepair during their absence. They were willing to rent them out until the rainy season when they expected to return to town. Anyone renting a house, therefore, had to look ahead to being soon evicted. During this transitional period, Old Town remained the seat of government for San Diego. Colonel John D. Stevenson of the New York Volunteers appointed Juan Bandini as alcalde on March 29, 1848, under authority from military Governor Richard B. Mason. Bandini held office until mid-June when Juan Maria Marron took over the position. Governor Bennet Riley restored the ayuntamiento on August 16, 1849, and appointed the following officers for San Diego: Alcalde, Juan Maria Marron; 1st Regidor, Richard Rust- 2nd Regidor, Miguel de Pedrorena, Sindico, Phillip Crosthwaite; and Prefect, Jose Antonio Estudillo. Voting lists were made up for the citizens of San Diego distinguishing those who knew how to write from those who did not. The ayuntamiento of 1849 appropriated $68.00 to certain persons for providing relief to suffering immigrants coming into California. On December 3, 1849, H.M.T. Powell arrived from Santa Fe, New Mexico. His account provides a rich story of San Diego during the early American period. His day-to-day notes on citizens and events are filled with colorful detail. He described gambling as rife in San Diego with alcohol utilized freely and heavily by nearly everyone. He talked of the United States Boundary Commission and its personnel, municipal elections, gardening and planting, and other aspects of daily life. Powell drew many maps and sketches of San Diego including a large map of Old Town for Henry Delano Fitch on January 25, 1850. Powell was paid meagerly, if at all, for these and numerous other maps he drew for city officials. It is possible that the so-called "Fitch Map", thought to be the earliest detailed map of Old Town, may have in fact been made by Powell. This map may also have been simply redrawn by Cave J. Couts, whose name appears at the bottom of what is known as the first map of Old Town in 1849. Couts is credited with the naming of several early streets in the vicinity.
The Act to Incorporate the City of San Diego was passed on March 27, 1850. The first government was to be elected with a Mayor and Common Council of five members, one of whom would be elected president. The Council could grant, purchase, hold, and receive property, real and personal, within the City. It might lease, sell and dispose of the same for the benefit of City, provide for regulation and use of all commons belonging to the City, and have a common Seal. The Act provided that they should not purchase or receive any real estate other than such lands or lots within the same as should be necessary for the erection thereon of public buildings, or for the laying out of streets or public grounds, or burial grounds. The Minutes of the Common Council of San Diego described the system to be established for determining ownership of property granted during Spanish and Mexican rule. Where no papers existed as deeds or titles, persons claiming land were to file statements with affidavits from others testifying that they had knowledge of ownership or occupation of lands. As these claims were filed, the Common Council took action and many Mexican ownerships were so confirmed, but some became entangled in long drawn-out hearings. During this period other pieces of land were being sold by the Common Council and in July, 1850, for example, property sold at 25 cents per vara [33 inches] front. Still other parcels were taken up for non-payment of taxes and with due notice and advertisement went at meager prices under the hammer of the sheriff's auctions. All claims intended to be made under the earlier grant system had to have been filed with the alcalde prior to the last day of January 1850, and these were to have been heard beginning with the last regular meeting of the Common Council in August. The Common Council minutes of 1850 also reflect some minor concerns. On November 21, the marshal reported that people coming into town were in the habit of hitching their horses to the railing around the flagstaff which, as a consequence, was in constant need of repair. He recommended that hitching posts be put up near the pole the next time it was repaired. He also recommended that the railing in front of the town hall be taken away. Old Town remained a little village huddled at the foot of Presidio Hill for many years. Ephraim Morse, an early resident, commented that when he first saw the presidio in 1850, the walls of the chapel and portions of other buildings were still standing. The roofing and tiles of most of the adobe structures, he said, had been used in building up the new town [Old Town] on the flat. It was not long afterwards however, that even the church walls were carried away. The ruined presidio must have served as a distant but ever-present reminder of San Diego's hispanic heritage. The houses "on the flat" were mostly single storied, but some had two and even three stories. They were adobe and wood, or both, clustered about the central plaza. A San Diego grand jury which was convened in 1852 criticized proprietors of local saloons or "low groggeries" that their "dens of iniquity. . .slyly vend poison to the half-savage Indian and his depraved mistress." The jury also called attention to the animal problem, since large numbers of cattle were allowed to run at large, annoying and obstructing the paths of citizens as they walked about town and endangering their lives at night. The state of uncleanliness in Old Town noted by the jury was reported in the Herald of April 13, 1852: "Pools of putrid matter. . . formed by offal, slops, and other garbage is being heaped up. The pure stream of water which otherwise would flow in our river is muddied and made obnoxious by the habit of washing clothing at the foot of every street." The local newspaper also reported weekly on the occurrence of duelling, gun battles, and knife slashings. Often the transient population was blamed, but so were the townspeople who "had got their backs up for duelling."
Old Town continued to develop during the next twenty years and new buildings, as can be seen from descriptions of individual houses and sites, were constructed. Some of the more famous structures included the American Hotel, Whaley House, Franklin House, Colorado House and the Robinson-Rose Railroad Building. The Seeley Stables were also a center of business activity. At the same time however, New San Diego occupied the attention of a number of developers and portions of Old Town fell into disuse. Mrs. Ephraim Morse (Mary C. Walker) who came to Old Town from New Hampshire in 1865 lamented: "Of all the dilapidated, miserable looking places I had ever seen, this was the worst. The buildings were nearly all adobe, one story in height. with no chimneys. Some of the roofs were covered with tiles and some with earth." Morse sold his store in Old Town in 1869 and moved with his family to the new business center being promoted by San Francisco merchant Alonzo E. Horton, a real estate developer originally from Wisconsin. The trend towards today's "downtown" had started. An act to grant further powers to the Board of Trustees of the City of San Diego and to establish the boundaries of the city was approved by the State Legislature on March 12, 1870. It divided San Diego into three wards and Old Town was listed as the first ward. A good description of the area at this time is provided by H.N. Kutchin, an Easterner writing in the Fort Atkinson Wisconsin Herald and quoted in the San Diego Union of February 2,1871: "Not long since I made a visit to Old Town. which recently celebrated its 100th birthday. (1869) And a queer 'Old Town' it is, with its tumble down adobe houses, and narrow streets twisted together in inextricable confusion. It looks as though the plat of the village had originally been stirred up with a long pole and had stayed so. The labyrinth of Crete was plain sailing in comparison. The houses are roofed with tiles, which gives a top-heavy appearance even to the low buildings that are covered with them. I had never before seen such roofing and could not help being impressed with the idea that the town was one extensive pottery, and that their wares were being sun-dried. With completion of a court house in New San Diego, the County Board of Supervisors ordered the removal of county records of Old Town to the new seat of municipal government. The order, issued on July 9, 1870, received some opposition from Old Town residents but was finally carried out on April 1, 1871, when the county archives were quietly moved. Although a disastrous fire swept through several buildings in 1872, many residents refused to move. The San Diego Union of July 24, 1873, and April 16, 1874, give a final summary of Old Town at the end of its heyday as San Diego's civic center: "There are 73 houses in Old Town... population of about 250. Of white families we have 37; single men 40; widows 5; widowers 2; children 125; Indians 30; Chinamen 8; the total 272. We have the finest school house in the Pueblo, with an average attendance of 75 pupils when the school is kept. The residences of our citizens are generally comfortable, even if not of the highest style of architecture. The river is a beautiful feature of the landscape. . . the home of 2 Catholic clergymen, 4 physicians, 3 lawyers, the State Senator, the County Judge and the County Treasurer. We have 3 stores, 2 saloons, 2 hotels, a French bakery and a blacksmith shop."