Murrieta City

Riverside County, California

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Murrieta City Hall is located at 1 Town Square, Murrieta, CA 92562.
Phone: 951‑304‑2489.

Neighborhoods

The City of Murrieta is located in southwestern Riverside County, between the Santa Ana Mountains and San Jacinto Mountains, where the I-15 and I-215 Freeways meet. This scenic area with creeks, hot springs, and rolling hills has been the site of various settlements dating back to prehistoric times, and Murrieta's downtown reflects the history of the town site that was established in 1884. The city was incorporated in 1991. [1]

The Murrieta area was originally included in Mission San Luis Rey's lands as part of Rancho Temecula. After secularization, other ranchos were carved from Rancho Temecula, including the Pauba, La Laguna, and Little Temecula Ranchos. By the mid-19th century, Murrieta's land area was bisected by the Southern Emigrant Trail, which ran through western Riverside County in a similar alignment to the current I-15 Freeway. The trail, which also served as the route of the Butterfield Overland Stage, went through a major stop called "Alamos," the Spanish word for cottonwoods, located near the present-day intersection of Cherry and Jefferson Avenues in Murrieta. Another branch of the Southern Emigrant Trail veered northward from Temecula to Box Springs near present-day Moreno Valley, roughly following the present-day route of I-215 Freeway.

The City of Murrieta was named after Don Juan Murrieta, a Spaniard who originally settled in the Merced region of the San Joaquin Valley. Don Juan Murrieta eventually drove his herds of sheep southward to southern California, and after bringing 100,000 sheep to southwestern Riverside County (along with several business partners), purchased 52,000 acres of the Temecula and Pauba ranchos from Vincent de Laveaga of San Francisco in 1873. Juan and his brother Ezekiel Murrieta deeded a right-of-way to the California Southern Railway in 1882 and soon thereafter announced their plans to subdivide a town called "Murrietaville" along the railroad.

  1. City of Murrieta, California, General Plan 2035, 2011, www.murrieta.org, accessed August, 2015.

Nearby Towns: Temecula City •


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