San Diego County, California Points of Interest

Originally built as the home of San Diego's John Brown. In 1850, the house was converted to a church by Don José Aguirre in 1858. Father Antoni... [click for more]

The first mass at a site nearby was celebrated September 20, 1818 by Father Fernando Martin. By 1822, Santa Ysabel was an asistencia, or mission outpo... [click for more]

After many attempts dated back to 1774 to provide a reliable source of water for crops and livestock for Mission San Diego de Alcala, a dam and flume ... [click for more]

On Sunday, July 16, 1769, Fathers Junípero Serra, Juan Vizcaino, and Fernando Parrón raised and blessed a cross to establish Alta California's ... [click for more]

Founded June 12, 1798 by Father Lasuén, then president of the California missions, and administered by Father Peyrí, Mission San Lu&iacu... [click for more]

The flat lands beyond have been a part of aviation history since Glenn Curtiss founded the first military flying school in America here on January 17,... [click for more]

The first public schoolhouse in this county, the Mason Street School-District 1, was erected at this site in 1865, when San Diego County covered an ar... [click for more]

Under the Master Plan for Higher Education adopted in 1960, the colleges in the newly established California College System were given degrees with th... [click for more]

A burial ground before 1847, this graveyard became an Army post cemetery in the 1860s. It is the final resting place for most who fell at San Pasqual ... [click for more]

Adobe built about 1863 by A. S. Ensworth. Home of Capt. Rufus K. Porter and family. Curved timbers brought from the Clarissa Andrews, famed coaling hu... [click for more]

Rancho Santa Fe began as Rancho San Dieguito, a land grant of nearly 9,000 acres made to Juan María Osuna in 1845. The Santa Fe Railway Company... [click for more]

Commemorating Cañada de Los Coches Rancho, smallest Mexican grant in California, granted in 1843 to Apolinaria Lorenzana by Governor Manuel Micheltore... [click for more]

Between 1937 and 1940, these adobe and wood buildings were built by actor Leo Carrillo as a retreat, working ranch, and tribute to old California cult... [click for more]

This lighthouse, built in 1854, was one of the first eight lighthouses on the Pacific Coast. It continued in use until 1891, when the new Pelican Poin... [click for more]

Formerly attached to Mission San Luís Rey, this 2,219-acre ranch was briefly owned by two mission Indians and then came into the hands of Don A... [click for more]

In July 1769, the Portola Expedition named this area for St. Margaret of Antioch. The Mission San Luis Rey 1827 Inventories list a small building in t... [click for more]

This house, in which the San Diego County Court met for about 20 years, was the first brick building to be erected in San Diego County. The bricks wer... [click for more]

Notable for its bell tower, or campanile, the chapel vas built by Father Peyrí in 1816. Almost destroyed by earthquake and storm, it was later ... [click for more]

Late in 1857, the three Johnson brothers and the twin Packard brothers came to this site to survey possibilities for a station to 'try out' or extract... [click for more]

The old road, known as the Sonora, Colorado River, or Southern Emigrant Trail and later as the Butterfield Overland Mail Route, traversed Box Canyon j... [click for more]

This pass, Puerta, between the desert and the cooler valleys to the north, was used by the Mormon Battalion, Kearny's Army of the West, the Butterfiel... [click for more]

Seeking the mythical Strait of Anián (the Northwest Passage) for Spain, on September 28, 1542, Iberian navigator Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo... [click for more]

Camp Wright, named for Brigadier General George Wright, United States Army, who commanded the Pacific Department and California District from 1861 to ... [click for more]

The pioneer Gaskill brothers of 1868 built a frame store which was raided on December 4, 1875 by border bandits. This fort-like replacement of summer ... [click for more]

This adobe house was constructed about 1827 by José and Juan Bandini. As headquarters of Commodore Robert F. Stockton in 1846, it was the place... [click for more]

Presidio Comandante Francisco María Ruiz built this house next to his 1808 pear garden lake in 1821 for his close relative and fellow soldier, ... [click for more]

Built about 1835 by Juan Francisco Lopez, one of San Diego's early Spanish settlers, the Casa Larga, or Long House, was among the first substantial ho... [click for more]

This adobe house, constructed about 1832 by José Manuel Machado, pioneer leatherjacket soldier of the Spanish Army who arrived at San Diego Pre... [click for more]

This was the home of Miguel de Pedrorena, who arrived in San Diego Viejo in 1838. Don Miguel was a member of the Constitutional Convention at Monterey... [click for more]

Adobe house constructed by José Manuel Machado in 1830s for his daughter Rosa, wife of John C. Stewart. Stewart was a shipmate of Richard Henry... [click for more]

Three generations of Don José María Estudillo's family made their home in Casa de Estudillo. Rich in historical background, the casa is ... [click for more]

This building was originally a two-story public house built by George Dewitt Clinton Washington Robinson about 1867. From this building one of the las... [click for more]

Until 1853 the erratic San Diego River dumped tons of debris into the harbor or poured into False Bay, now Mission Bay. At times it threatened to dest... [click for more]

This plaque was placed on the 250th anniversary of the birth of California's apostle, Padre Junípero Serra, OFM, to mark El Camino Real as he k... [click for more]

El Campo Santo once included the adobe chapel on Conde Street, in which were buried José Antonio Aguirre, María Victoria Domíngue... [click for more]

This route was opened by Captain Juan Bautista de Anza and Father Francisco Garcés in 1774. Anza's expedition of 1775, a group of 240 soldiers ... [click for more]

The steam ferryboat Berkeley was the first successful West Coast-built and operated ferry to be driven by a screw propeller as opposed to sid... [click for more]

President Millard Fillmore's executive order of 1852 created a U.S. Preserve on Point Loma. From 1870 to 1873 the coast artillery corpsmen evicted wha... [click for more]

Fortified briefly by Carlos Carrillo in 1828, this site became Fort Dupont (July-November 1846) after American forces took Old Town during the Mexican... [click for more]

The 1925 Giant Dipper Roller Coaster (or “Earthquake”) is a large wooden roller coaster, and its highest “hills” reach a heigh... [click for more]

This Victorian hotel, built in 1887, is one of America's largest wooden buildings. Few seaside resort hotels of this significant architectural style r... [click for more]

Following the discovery of gold nearby during the winter of 1869-70, this valley became the commercial and social center of a thriving mining district... [click for more]

Near this spring, the first Christian baptism in Alta California was performed by Padre Francisco Gómez, a member of the Portolá Expedition, in... [click for more]

Sailors and marines were buried here in 1782, when San Diego Bay was surveyed and charted by Don Juan Pantoja y Arriaga, pilot, and Don José To... [click for more]

From 1823 to the 1840s, the tile-roofed adobe chapel and hostel at Las Flores, built by Father Antonio Peyrí, served as the asistencia to Missi... [click for more]

Juan Bautista de Anza's expedition marched through this little pass December 19, 1775 on its way to strengthen Spanish colonization in California. Man... [click for more]

At Otay Mesa, in 1883, John Joseph Montgomery made the first flight in a heavier-than-air craft 20 years before the Wrights. Montgomery made many more... [click for more]

On December 7, 1846, the day following the Battle of San Pasqual fought five miles east of here, General Stephen Kearny's command, on its way to San D... [click for more]

This National City California Southern Railroad depot built in 1882 served as the first Pacific Coast terminus station of the Santa Fe Railway system’... [click for more]

Oak Grove is one of the few remaining stations on the Butterfield Overland Mail route, which operated between San Francisco and two eastern terminals-... [click for more]

From 1770 to 1870, this was San Diego's port. Over the Brookline hide house, Americans unofficially raised a U.S. flag in 1829. At that time La Playa ... [click for more]

El Desembarcadero was one of the first landmarks designated during the first year of the landmark program. The site was recognized as the landing plac... [click for more]

Settled by pensioned soldiers from the presidio and their families, Old Town grew into a cluster of adobe houses and garden plots in the early 1800s. ... [click for more]

Here Mexican pioneers coming to California between 1862 and 1866 rested among the palms, here, too, came mountain men, the Army of the West, the Mormo... [click for more]

On October 29, 1772, headed east from San Diego in search of army deserters, Colonel Pedro Fages made the first entry by a European into Oriflamme Can... [click for more]

Thomas L. Smith, better known as 'Peg Leg,' 1801-1866, was a mountain man, prospector, and spinner of tall tales. Legends regarding his lost gold mine... [click for more]

This plaza was established as the center of the Mexican Pueblo of San Diego which elected its first ajuntamiento in 1834. On July 29, 1846, at 4 p.m.,... [click for more]

New San Diego was established as a quartermaster depot by Captain Nathaniel Lyon, 2nd U.S. Infantry, in 1850-51 to supply military establishments in S... [click for more]

Soldiers, sailors, Indians, and Franciscan missionaries from New Spain occupied the land at Presidio Hill on May 17, 1769 as a military outpost. Two m... [click for more]

Here the southern trail of explorers, trappers, soldiers, and emigrants crossed ancient trade routes of Kamia, Cahuilla, Diegueno, and Luiseño Indians... [click for more]

Somewhere in this narrow valley, perhaps on this very spot, the Anza Expeditions of 1774 and 1775 made their camps. Water for the 240 people and over ... [click for more]

While marching to the conquest and occupation of California during the Mexican War, a detachment of 1st U.S. Dragoons under the command of Brigadier G... [click for more]

This spring was named by Captain Juan Bautista de Anza when his overland exploration party camped here on March 14, 1774, on the journey that opened t... [click for more]

Site of the palm planted in 1769 by Padre Junípero Serra when he arrived at San Diego. Here the four divisions of the Portolá Expedition... [click for more]

This adobe is said to have been built about 1835 by Juan or Ramon Cota. ... [click for more]

An outpost of Spain's far-flung empire at its greatest extent, this fort was completed before 1800 from plans drawn by Alberto de Córdoba in 1795. Its... [click for more]

This plaque commemorates the life and influence of a woman who envisioned a beautiful San Diego. On this site she operated a nursery and gained world ... [click for more]

Near this point, sea and land parties of the Portolá-Serra expedition met in 1769. Two ships, the San Antonio and San Carlos, anchored on May 4... [click for more]

The “Star of India,” a three-masted bark, is the oldest iron-hulled merchant ship afloat. Built on the Isle of Man, Great Britain, she was... [click for more]

This tablet marks the site of the Exchange Hotel. Here, on June 29,1851, Masons met for the first time in San Diego and organized the lodge which beca... [click for more]

A reconstruction (1934) of Vallecito Stage Station built in 1852 at the edge of the Great Colorado Desert. It was an important stop on the first offic... [click for more]

In 1844, Governor Manuel Micheltorena granted 44,322 acres to Juan José Warner, who built this house. General Kearny passed here in 1846, and t... [click for more]