San Diego City

San Diego City Hall is located at 202 C Street, San Diego, CA 92101; phone: 619-533-6387.

Beginnings [1]

Prehistoric Period (8500 BC to AD 1769)

• Native American people lived throughout San Diego continuously
• Subsistence changed from more nomadic hunting to a focus on coastal marine and inland food sources with native plant gathering to a semi-sedentary lifestyle with limited horticulture
• Significant time markers include changes in stone tools, mortuary practices, and the introduction of pottery
• Spanish exploration begins

Spanish Period (1769 to 1821)

• Arrival of Spanish missionaries and explorers
• Presidio and Mission San Diego de Alcala established
• Spanish occupation and mission system profoundly changed lives of the Kumeyaay people
• Early house lots and garden plots in what would become Old Town

Mexican Period (1821 to 1846)

• Mexico wins independence from Spain and San Diego becomes part of the Mexican Republic
• Rancho system of extensive land grants to individuals
• Secularization of the San Diego Mission
• Mexico granted San Diego official pueblo (town) status
• Native American population continued to decline

American Development (1846-Present)

• Americans assumed formal control under the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848
• William Heath Davis founded the earliest American development of "New Town" in 1850
• Alonzo Horton arrived in 1867 and helped San Diego develop into an active American town
• Expansion of trade brought an increase in the availability of building material
• Active African-American and Chinese communities lived and worked downtown
• Urban growth spurred by industrial capitalism and land speculation and early private infrastructure investment
• Chinese, German, Swiss, Italian, Portuguese, and other immigrants owned businesses and worked throughout San Diego, as do their descendents today

1. City of San Diego General Plan,Historic Preservation Element, March, 2008, www.sandiego.gov, accessed October, 2011.