San Diego: The highlights
The San Diego area has long been inhabited by the Kumeyaay (Tipai-Ipai) Native Americans. The Kumeyaay Research Portal says the following:
The Kumeyaay operate farms, casinos, and other businesses on their lands within the county.
The original town of San Diego was located at the foot of Presidio Hill, in the area that is now Old Town San Diego State Historic Park. Today, Old Town is a popular place to visit, dine, and shop because of its unique boutique shops, historical sites, Mexican restaurants, and the most-haunted house in the United States—the Whaley House.
San Diego was incorporated as a city and named the county seat of San Diego County. In 1867, Alonzo Horton built a wharf on the bay and developed land several miles south of the town, an area that would become downtown San Diego. In 1906, John D. Spreckels built a railway to provide San Diego with a direct transcontinental rail link to the east by connecting with the Southern Pacific Railroad. The railway was dubbed the “The Impossible Railroad” by many engineers of its day due to the immense logistical challenges involved in building it. Eight major catastrophes delayed the completion of the railway to 1919. After completion, the line was plagued with a series of environmental disasters, including earthquakes, landslides, heavy rains, and fires. Passenger service was discontinued in 1951. The line includes Goat Canyon trestle, built in 1932, which is the longest and tallest curved wooden trestle in the United States.
San Diego has always had a strong military presence, with garrisons of soldiers of Spain, Mexico, and the United States. Significant U.S. Navy presence began in 1901, with the establishment of the Navy Coaling Station in Point Loma. Large installations since then include Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, Naval Base San Diego, San Diego Naval Hospital in Balboa Park, Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, San Diego Naval Training Center (closed in 1997), and Marine Base at Camp Pendleton.
San Diego hosted two World’s Fairs: the Panama-California Exposition in 1915 and the California Pacific International Exposition in 1935. The expositions left a lasting legacy in the form of Balboa Park and the San Diego Zoo. Today, Balboa Park hosts more than 15 museums, including the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center, 19 gardens, nine performing arts and music theaters, a carousel, a miniature railroad, the Spanish Village art center, and the world-famous San Diego Zoo.
San Diego is a member with Tijuana, Mexico, of the San Diego-Tijuana international metropolitan area. The combined area includes a population of 5 million people. Each city is a major port of entry for trade and tourism between the United States and Mexico. Hundreds of thousands of vehicles pass between the nations daily and 40 million people cross the border each year.
Like other American cities, San Diego is home to immigrants and descendants of recent immigrants from all over the world. Because of its nearness, Mexico has contributed the largest number of immigrants, but there are immigrants from Iraq, Iran, Israel, Italy, Germany, France, India, Pakistan, China (including autonomous Taiwan), S. Korea, Indonesia, Ukraine, Russia, Vietnam, Canada, and the Philippines. With rare exceptions (the end of the Vietnam War, the collapse of the USSR), the immigration has been a continuous flow, rather than discrete floods.
San Diego supports major sports and arts, in addition to science, commerce, and industry. The spectacular statue of a face near the convention center was built in 2001 under the supervision of Niki de Saint Phalle, an immigrant from France, whose other works are distributed around the public areas of San Diego. For further information, visit the San Diego History Center.
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