BGuthrie Photos: CA -- San Diego -- Old Town San Diego State Historic Park -- McCoy House

CA -- San Diego -- Old Town San Diego State Historic Park -- McCoy House:

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. SDOTHM_070724_004.JPG: Transitional US Era: (mid-1850s) San Diego's development as a major port after the Mexican War and influx of Americans altered San Diego's landscape in profound ways. The new settlers dug wells, built wooden fences, and planted okra, cabbage, sweet potatoes, beans, pumpkins, watermelons, and parsnips, in addition to the traditional Californio (Mexican) staples. Wealthier residents often hired gardeners, many from China. Some gardens featured vines and beds of flowering larkspur, violets, and dahlias for their ornamental value.
2. SDOTHM_070724_006.JPG: U.S. Era (Palms): (1930s): By the turn-of-the-twentieth century, the railroads, real estate developers, and other sponsors of tourism were marketing San Diego as a vacation wonderland. The missions and ranchos, whether restored or in ruins, became tangible symbols of a Spanish past steeped in romance and elegance. Old Town's landscape became part of the fascination and myth. Non-native plants like these date palms convey the fanciful image of the town's dry and treeless landscape of earlier years.
3. SDOTHM_070724_011.JPG: U.S. Era (Orchard): (1870s - 1880s): The transcontinental railroad and steamship lines by the 1880s were bringing nursery shipments to San Diego from the East Coast, the Mediterranean, Australia, New Zealand, and Chile. Over the next three decades, San Diego would become the "horticultural emporium of the U.S.A." according to Kate Olivia Sessions, San Diego's well-known horticulturist. San Diego's changing landscape reflected this shift. Residents planted fruit trees, and decorated their homes with trellises covered with passion vine and grape vine. Windmills were built on the plaza and the Seeley Stable and McCoy properties to pump water.
4. SDOTHM_070724_012.JPG: Spanish-Mexican Eras: (1769 to 1846): The gardens or huertas of the Spaniards and later Californios (Mexicans) were multi-purpose. Residents grew beans, squash, peppers, corn, and tomatoes for food, as well as herbs like yerba buena, yerba santa, chamomile, and mint for culinary and medicinal value. Marigolds, carnations, and Castilian roses were sometimes planted near adobe homes for their beauty and fragrance. Bouquets of flowers often adorned family altars. Gardens were usually fenced with prickly pear cactus or century plant to protect them from foraging animals and livestock.
5. SDOTHM_070724_023.JPG: Welcome to the Old Town San Diego State Historical Park Interpretive Center. Originally built in 1869 for Sheriff James McCoy and family, the house you see is a reconstruction of the original two-story, wood-frame home. The McCoy House contains exhibits depicting Old Town's transition from a Mexican pueblo to an American frontier town. A remote but vital center of California trade and development, it became the destination of people from many lands, as is San Diego today. Step back in time, and learn about the people who once lived here.
6. SDOTHM_070724_024.JPG: "The McCoy Home loomed up over the rest of the houses in the neighborhood in about the same proportion that its owner did over his late competitor in the race for Sheriff." -- San Diego Weekly Union, May 5, 1869 James McCoy, an influential Irish-born politician in the Democratic Party, built this two-story, Greek Revival home in 1869 as a wedding present to his wife, Winnifred Kearney of Los Angeles. Both James and Winnifred died in the home before it fell into disrepair after World War I. California State Parks completed reconstructing the original home in 2000.
7. SDOTHM_070724_030.JPG: One of their newer acquisitions. It had just arrived.
8. SDOTHM_070724_034.JPG: The typical parlor of an upper-middle-class family, like the McCoys, served many functions. Here, the family received guests introduced by a servant, read or played games, listened to children's recitations and musical performances, and they held holiday gatherings, family devotions, and funeral receptions -- sometimes with the coffin. Interior furnishings, like the wooden mantelpiece, chandelier, family portraits, and fine cabinet conveyed a respectability that upwardly mobile families, such as the McCoys, sought in a community like San Diego. The stereoscope (to your right) enabled viewing of 3-D photographs.
9. SDOTHM_070724_048.JPG: When the Bells Tolled: "The pagans are numerous, while the Christian flock is small." -- Father Fermin Francisco de Lasuen, San Diego, 1782 Tolling bells regulated all of the mission's activities. The day began with the singing of the morning hymn, followed by Mass, meals, and work assignments -- all signaled by the bells. Once baptized, the converts could be held against their will. The padres attempted to regulate almost every aspect of their lives from meals, work, and amusements to marriage, sex, sleep, and religion. For the Kumeyaay residing at the mission and at nearby rancherias, the bell represented the onset of a new time-disciplined way of life.
10. SDOTHM_070724_053.JPG: The Sword and the Cross: For centuries, Spain used missions -- part church, town, and military fortress -- to secure its claims to new lands. From rude beginnings of brushwood huts and wooden palisades, the Spaniards carved a foothold on a hill near the Kumeyaay village of Cosoy. The Franciscan friars set out to convert the Indians to Catholicism. The missionaries hoped that the Kumeyaay would come voluntarily, attracted by the ceremonies and rituals. Outbreaks of resistance in the early years were frequent and bloody. Eventually some joined the church, enticed by gifts of food, glass beads, colored cloth, and trinkets, or for protection from more aggressive tribes. Most did not fully understand the consequence of baptism. Once baptized, the converted Indians, or neophytes, were required to live at the missions and forbidden to return to their former way of life. In San Diego, however, the neophytes remained in their own villages or rancherias. Supply ships came to San Diego infrequently, sometimes only once a year. The missions, far from Spanish civilization, had to be self-supporting. Facing a shortage of men, the missions relied on the Kumeyaay labor force for their very survival. Father Serra and the Franciscan friars would eventually establish 21 missions, linked by the 700 mile-long El Camino Real (the Royal Road).
11. SDOTHM_070724_059.JPG: Opening a New World: After defeating the Islamic Moors in 1492, a united Roman Catholic Spain carved out a military empire in the New World that defied its capacity to govern. By 1595, Nueva Espana (New Spain) stretched from the Andes Mountains in Peru to the peninsula of Baja California. This far-flung empire was populated by millions of native peoples ruled by a Spanish minority -- some in pursuit of glory, wealth, and Catholic converts from among the indigenous peoples. They brought a system of courts, missions and forts; the wheel and the pulley; the Spanish language and the Catholic faith. They also brought diseases, such as smallpox, measles, and influenza, which decimated the native populations.
12. SDOTHM_070724_062.JPG: The Spanish Explorers: First Encounter: Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo: From the decks of the Spanish ships San Salvador and La Victoria, the explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo and his men could see clouds of smoke drifting about a sheltered bay. It was September 28, 1543, fifty years after Christopher Columbus had reached the "New World." The men -- pale-skinned, bearded, clad in leather armor, and carrying swords and muskets -- presented a frightening appearance to the local Kumeyaay. The Spaniards named the bay San Miguel. Five days later, they sailed north, searching for the mythical Strait of Anian, an inland water route rumored to connect the Pacific to the Atlantic. Second Contact: Sebastian Vizcaino: Sixty years later, Sebastian Vizcaino and his crew dropped anchor in San Miguel Bay on November 10, 1602. They renamed it San Diego Bay after their flagship and the Saint San Diego de Alcala -- November 12th being that saint's day. Like Cabrillo, Vizcaino stayed briefly before sailing northward searching for a safe harbor where Spanish galleons from the Philippine Islands could resupply before sailing on. These early encounters left scarcely a trace, but signaled the dawn of a new era, when Spanish settlement would change life forever for the native people. Settlement: Gaspar De Portola: In the summer of 1769, a land-and-sea expedition from Mexico, led by Gaspar de Portola, converged on the bay of San Diego. Of the original fleet of three ships, two remained. The sailors were sick with scurvy and dysentery. Only half of those who had begun the journey survived. Portola's colonizing expedition was charged with establishing Spanish settlements along California's coast to prevent foreign control. The expedition's camp on a hill above the bay marked the beginnings of San Diego and a dramatic change to the Kumeyaay traditional way of life.
13. SDOTHM_070724_066.JPG: The Kumeyaay Revolt: "That night seemed to us as long as the pains of Purgatory. The arrows stopped coming for a while, but not the rocks and firebrands." -- Father Vicente Fester, San Diego, 1725 In 1774, the mission was relocated inland, closer to the river and to Nipaguay, a large Kumeyaay village. The presidio remained on the hill. The relocation alarmed the Kumeyaay, fearing their loss of independence. They watched with growing resentment as Spanish plows and grazing cattle destroyed many of their traditional sources for edible plants and acorns. Spanish soldiers abused and kidnapped their women and children. On November 5, 1775, an attack involving 18 Kumeyaay rancherias (villages) burned the mission, killing three Spaniards, including Father Luis Jayme.
14. SDOTHM_070724_070.JPG: "Los Soldaros de Cuera" "The leather jacket ... whose shape is like that of a coat without sleeves, is made of six or seven plies of white tanned deerskin." -- Miguel Costanso, member of Portola's expedition, 1769 The nucleus of the garrison at the presidio was the soldaros de cuera (leather-jacketed soldiers) -- Spain's mounted soldiers. Armed with lance and musket, they provided enforcement for mission society. The mission, in turn, supplied the San Diego presidio with the bulk of its food, clothing, and labor -- all products of the neophytes (Indian converts). Most of the soldiers had come from the Mexican frontier provinces of Sinaloa, Sonora and Baja California, and they often married neophyte women. By 1777, the garrison's 56 leather-jacketed soldiers patrolled over 120 miles of coastal wilderness from Mission San Diego to Mission San Gabriel in Los Angeles.
15. SDOTHM_070724_071.JPG: The Mission as a Workshop: The development of an aqueduct and dam provided Mission San Diego de Alcala with a steady supply of water to convert the sage-scrub landscape into orchards, gardens, and cultivated fields. By 1800 there was a tannery, granary, harness-making and blacksmith shop, and over 6,000 head of cattle and 6,000 sheep. The mission's 1,500 Indian workers tanned cowhides, wove cotton cloth, spun wool, and made nearly everything from adobe bricks and blankets to clay pots and leather saddles. Local residents relied on this workforce for the bulk of their food, clothing, and labor.
16. SDOTHM_070724_074.JPG: The Californios of San Diego
17. SDOTHM_070724_076.JPG: Mexican Independence: "When Commandant (Francisco Maria) Ruiz ... cried out 'Long live the Mexican Empire!' , the Spanish flag was lowered and the Mexican flag raised in the midst of salvos or artillery men and musketeers.... "On the following day, an order was given to cut off the braids of the soldiers... The order was carried out. I remember that when Papa came home with his braid in his hand and gave it to Mama, his face was very sad and that of Mama no less so -- She looked at the braid and wept." -- Juana Machado de Wrightington, "Times Gone By In Alta California", 1878. Mexico gained its independence from Spain, in 1821, after a decade of bloodshed. Independence brought inevitable changes -- new political loyalties, a decline in support for the presidio, and freedom from Spain's restrictive trade regulations. In the first decade of independence, five provisional land grants were made to private individuals in the vicinity of San Diego.
18. SDOTHM_070724_083.JPG: The Early Retirement Community: As compensation for their years of military service, veteran soldiers received sitios (small land plots) from the Spanish government. Francisco Maria Ruiz, the comandante of the presidio, was among the first to plant a huerta (garden) on the sandy plain below Presidio Hill. By the mid-1820s, a small cluster of brown adobes, roofed with thatch and dried mud, formed a rough yet orderly pattern of streets around the treeless plaza. The houses belonged to the Ruiz, Ybafiez, Serrano, Marron, and Pico families. Breaking the Church's Hold: Missions were intended to be temporary institutions. Their properties were to be distributed among trained, fully integrated neophytes after 10 years. In reality, the Catholic Church continued to retain control over vast landholdings, to the dismay of influential Californios. Alta California's assembly passed a "secularization" law in 1834 authorizing the governor to appoint major-domos (administrators) to redistribute about one-half of the mission lands among the former neophytes. Under their direction, nearly all of the church's former properties went to friends and relatives of the governors. Out of the 1,445 Indians living at or near Mission San Diego de Alcala, a few dozen families received land, forming the Indian pueblos of San Dieguito, Las Flores, and San Pascual. Already suffering from disease and malnutrition and now without land, the former neophytes either drifted to the settlements and ranches or retreated to the back-country.
19. SDOTHM_070724_087.JPG: Age of the Ranchos: "Californians were bound to each other by ties either of blood or of friendship, so that the traveler could go from one end of California to the other without it costing him anything in money excepting gifts he might wish to make to the Indian servants at the missions or on the ranchos." -- Jose del Carmen Lugo, "Life of a Rancher," 1877. The breakup of the missions created a new social elite -- the rancheros. In the space of 12 years from 1834 to 1846, Mexico's governors awarded at least 39 private land grants in the San Diego region. Most were huge, encompassing thousands of acres. Old Town's influential families -- Juan Maria Osuna, the first mayor; his son-in-law, Juan Maria Marron; Jose Antonio Estudillo, twice-elected mayor; his sister Magdalena and brother-in-law Juan Bandini -- were all granted ranchos. The legal process required no payment, only a petition with a verbal description, and a hand-drawn map or diseno. Boundaries were approximate, based on natural features. Such an informal process set the stage for serious court challenges later under a more exacting American legal system.
20. SDOTHM_070724_088.JPG: Vaqueros: The Original Cowboys: "To see a Californian ride you would think he was a part of his horse -- whether the horse trots or lopes, gallops or runs..." -- Robert Effinger, U.S. Soldier, Camp Riley, near San Diego, Aug. 1, 1849 The vaquero (cowboy) was the working cowboy on the missions and ranches. Although Spanish law forbade Indians from riding horses, they quickly became expert horsemen as ranching expanded. Most vaqueros were either former neophytes or mestizos (Indian-Spanish ancestry). Riding was more than a job to the vaquero; it was his razon de ser (reason for being). His stock-handling skills with the rawhide lariat were legendary. Often married and living on his master's rancho, a vaquero was deeply religious, frequently asking his patron saint or priest to bless him and his family.
21. SDOTHM_070724_090.JPG: San Diego's Fiestas: "How often did we spend half the night at a tertulia -- till 2 o'clock in the morning -- in the most agreeable and distinguished society. Our house would be full of company; thirty of forty persons at a table; it would have to be set twice." -- Victoria Dominguez de Estudillo, wife of Jose Antonio Estudillo, 1861. Through their celebration of feast days and festivals, Californios maintained deep attachments to their families, friends, and Catholic faith. They danced at wedding, on the patron saint's birthday, and at the fiestas (parties) in the plaza and larger homes like that of the Estudillos. During the religious festival of La Pastorela on Christmas Eve, children and adults paraded through the pueblo's streets. Wearing biblical costumes, they visited the principal casas (houses), where they reenacted humorous scenes of the shepherds' journey to Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus. Comida: The Californios developed their own distinctive style of frontier cooking. They mixed corn, beans, beef, and spices. A favorite dish was the "guisado de carne seca" -- shredded beef cooked in a rich gravy with tomatoes, onions, and green chiles.
22. SDOTHM_070724_093.JPG: Sporting Games: Along with dancing, horse racing was a popular pastime. Young men frequently raced their horses to church on Sundays, while their families rode in oxen-drawn wagons. The stakes were usually money or livestock. The plaza was used for bullfights, cockfights, and bull-and-bear fights. In a daredevil game called the carrera del gallo (rooster race), horsemen raced from opposite ends towards a live rooster buried in the ground up to its head. Usually the winner plucked out the rooster whole, but sometimes it was just the head. The loser was sometimes unhorsed by the betting crowd.
23. SDOTHM_070724_096.JPG: California Banknotes: "The currency of the country consisted of hides and tallow, to such a point that in order to purchase a bit or two bits' worth of sugar or any other article, for example, the purchaser dragged the hide along with him to the store. The value of one hide was twelve reales ($1.50) in silver, and $2 in goods; which proves the scarcity of money." -- Jose Arnaz, storekeeper memoirs, 1878. Land around San Diego was too dry for farming, but just right for grazing animals such as sheep, horses, and cattle. The hide and tallow trade, begun by the missionaries, expanded with the ranchos. The outbreak of Indian hostilities in 1837, coupled with continued political instability, limited their operations. Cattle by the thousands roamed the unfenced hills. The ranchos held rodeos (round-ups) in the springtime, where neighboring rancheros could come and collect their cattle from the herd. In the summer came the matanza -- the slaughter of cattle for their hide and tallow. The vaqueros corralled the longhorn cattle and butchered them. Skinners removed the hides and staked them to the ground to dry, Indian women cut off the animal's fat, and dumped it into great smoking kettles to boil into tallow. Ox-drawn carretas (carts) hauled the tallow and hides away, leaving wild animals and packs of dogs, raised for that purpose. to feed on the rotting carcasses. Hides were more valuable than meat, and the small population of San Diego could not possibly consume all of the beef produced during the matanza. The shoe industry of the eastern United States made the California hide trade possible, and profitable. Cattle hides were even used locally for money, and became known as California Banknotes. The hide and tallow trade lasted for some 70 years as the main source of economic vitality for San Diego. Tallow, the raw ingredient of candles and soap, was another source of wealth. Each cow provided an average of 200 pounds of tallow. Tallow was stored and transported in sewn cowhide sacks, called bolsas.
24. SDOTHM_070724_105.JPG: Boston Traders "The regular Boston traders generally have two vessels on the coast at the same time... Varying from 12 to 14 months, one of them returns home, leaving the others until a fresh ship relieves her, thus continually keeping the work of collecting going on." -- Thomas O. Larkin, U.S. Consul in Monterey, 1845 Three-mast ships, known as "Boston Traders," stopped at California's ports, loading thousands of hides destined for the tanneries and shoe factories of New England. The big ships sailed around the southern tip of South America, while vessels from Peru, Chile, and Mexico sailed up the Pacific Coast to trade for tallow, a cattle by-product used to make candles and soap. The Boston firm of Bryant, Sturgis & Company, the mainstay of the hide trade, shipped an estimate 500,000 cowhides from California back East between 1831 and 1836. Its domination of the trade set the stage for growing United States' interest in Mexican California.
25. SDOTHM_070724_106.JPG: The Hide Houses: "... for large houses, built of rough boards, and looking like great barns... with piles of hides standing round them, and men in red skirts and large straw hats walking in and out of the door. These were the hide houses." -- Richard Henry Dana, Jr., "Two Years Before the Mast," 1840 "As the hides are all green, or nearly so, each vessel has to cure them for herself and as the upper half of the coast, owing to the rains and fogs of the northwesters, is unsuitable, the hides have to be carried to the drier climate of southern ports, particularly San Diego." -- Sir George Simpson, Hudson Bay Company, 1842 San Diego was the hub of the coastal hide trade. Its warm, dry weather and calm, landlocked harbor prevented the cured hides from getting wet and thus ruined when loaded into the waiting ships. Hides were hauled to La Playa (the beach) inside the bay at Point Loma. Here, they were sorted and stored in the hide sheds awaiting shipment. Foreign crews, mainly Kanaka natives from the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands, soaked the hides in brine to remove the swarming insects, and then scraped, staked, dried, and flailed them. The hide houses reeked -- enough to "drive a donkey from his breakfast," according to Richard Henry Dana, Jr.
26. SDOTHM_070724_111.JPG: "Fond of Everything New": "The richer the Goods and finer, the more readily they sell such as figured Muslin Shawls -- Calicoes -- Dresses in Good Patterns... Send the latest fashion and most showy colours -- They are fond of everything new." -- Alfred Robinson, agent, Bryant, Sturgis & Company, 1835 "Their hides, too, which they value at two dollars in money, they give for something which costs 75 cents in Boston and buy shoes ( ... made of their own hides, and... carried twice around Cape Horn) at three of four dollars..." -- Richard Henry Dana, Jr., "Two Years Before the Mast", 1840 Californios traded for goods from the world over: New England woolens and leather goods, Chinese silk shawls and porcelain, Irish linens, Spanish wines, Peruvian coffee, iron tools, copper pots, rope, sugar, buttons, thread, and other goods from every port of call along the way. Boxes and bundles of goods were unloaded from the rowboats at La Playa, and then hauled to the few shops in San Diego, usually run by foreign-born traders like Henry Fitch, the first American to settle in the pueblo. Traders took orders to be delivered six months to a year later.
27. SDOTHM_070724_117.JPG: War Comes to San Diego: In 1846, the United States declared war against Mexico, primarily over the Texas-Mexico boundary. United States occupation of San Diego, divided the Californios. Those loyal to Mexico lay siege to the pueblo, but the arrival of U.S. forces under Commodore Robert F. Stockton ended the effort. Notes scout Kit Carson, Lt. Edward F. Beale, and an Indian guide, Che-Muc-Tah brought word that General Stephen Watts Kearny's "Army of the West" was besieged by Californio lancers under the command of Andres Pico at San Pascual. A force of 215 marines, sailors, and volunteers was dispatched to rescue the survivors and escort them back to San Diego. The Mormon Battalion, recruited by the U.S. government, arrived from Iowa in January 1847, after the longest march in U.S. military history. Too late for the war in California, they hired themselves out to the townspeople to whitewash adobes, dig wells, lay walkways, and build San Diego's first red brick building -- the courthouse. The war officially ended on February 2, 1848, with the signing of the Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo. Mexico lost nearly half of its original territory: the present U.S. Southwest and California. The United States, in turn, promised to protect the property rights of the Mexican citizens living in these areas -- a promise that was seldom enforced.
28. SDOTHM_070724_118.JPG: The People of Old Town: Lt. George Horatio Derby: "A wife's love don't begin to show itself till the sheriff is after you." -- John Phoenix, San Diego Herald, 1853 "A woman is a great deal like a piece of ivy. The more you are ruined, the closer she clings to you." -- John Phoenix, San Diego Herald, 1853 George Horatio Derby was destined to make the world laugh. A lieutenant in the U.S. Army Topographical Engineers, he arrived in San Diego in 1853 to build a levee to change the course of the San Diego River. His friend, Judge J.J. Ames, editor of the San Diego Herald, put Derby in charge of the paper while he was gone for weeks on business. Under the pen name, "John Phoenix," Derby transformed the sober conservative weekly into a riotous conglomeration of wit and satire, while urging his readers to vote for the opposing party's gubernatorial candidate in the upcoming election. All California laughed, and Derby's hoax was soon reported in the eastern press, making him known by many, including Abraham Lincoln, an Illinois politician. His drawings likewise mocked conventions. He once sent the War Department sketches of new Army uniforms featuring pants with brass hooks attached to the seat. The books, he explained, would allow officers to capture AWOL soldiers. The secretary of war was not around. This pioneering humorist, who influenced Mark Twain and Bret Harte, died in 1861 at the age of 38.
29. SDOTHM_070724_123.JPG: Interrupted Lives: "After the battle of San Pascual, my husband was so angry with his countrymen over the mistreatment he was receiving and the abuse against his property that he mailed a letter to the Commodore (Robert F. Stockton) asking him if we could come back to live in San Diego." -- Felipa Osuna de Marron, "Memories", 1878 Behind the battles and the dates, people like Juan Maria and Felipa Osuna de Marron struggled to survive. An established San Diego family, the Marrons owned Rancho Agua Hedionda near Mission San Luis Rey. The family was loyal to Mexico. As the U.S. war with Mexico unfolded, loyalties frayed. On more than one occasion, Californio troops loyal to Mexico, took Marron's cattle. American soldiers detained and questioned him. Concerned for his family, Marion sought safety at Mission San Luis Rey. The journey, however, almost proved to be their undoing. "My husband and I were traveling on foot with our children," Felipa later recalled. "We thought we would be welcomed by our countrymen at the mission, but we found them angry against my husband; they even wanted to execute him." Accused of consorting with the enemy, Marron was locked up by the Californios. Felipa was escorted back to their rancho. Once Marron was released, the family left the rancho for the safety of San Diego, then under U.S. control.
30. SDOTHM_070724_131.JPG: Leather Money: There was very little currency available in the early days of San Diego. People bartered, trading goods, services, and labor. Wealth was based on land. San Diego's richest family, the Estudillos, earned about $7,000 a year in the mid-1830s, or nearly $130,000 today. Most families earned far less. The development of the hide and tallow trade in the 1830s changed the situation. Goods poured in from around the world, and cattle hides, then known as California Banknotes, became the standard rate of exchange. Prices fluctuated according to supply and demand, weather conditions, quality of the goods, and the vessel's departure date. In the 1830s one cattle hide was worth approximately $2, or about $37 today. Below are some examples of goods purchased: Item -- Cost in 1846 -- Cost today Blankets -- $15.00 each -- $278.44 each Plates -- $0.25 each -- $4.64 each Hats -- $1.20 each -- $22.27 each Screwdrivers -- $1.00 each -- $18.56 each Boots -- $10.00 pair -- $185.60 pair Petticoats -- $45.00 each -- $835.20 each
31. SDOTHM_070724_136.JPG: Boundary Commission: "The international boundary will begin at a point, one marine league south of the Port of San Diego, and run, at that time, to the junction of the Gila and Colorado River." -- The Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo, 1848 In the aftermath of war, Mexico and the United States created a joint commission to form a new international boundary. Representatives from the two nations met in San Diego in July 1849. Headed by veteran topographical engineer Major William Emory, they began the difficult task of surveying and mapping a line stretching from Texas to the Pacific Coast. A shortage of equipment, political infighting, and insufficient funds slowed the commission's work. As the project neared completion, the United States pressed Mexico for control of land south of the proposed boundary. The border issue was resolved in 1853 with the Gadsden Purchase, when the disputed territory was sold to the United States with 15 million dollars.
32. SDOTHM_070724_138.JPG: Grog shop
33. SDOTHM_070724_142.JPG: Grog Shop: "There are now five grog shops open and frequented day and night by soldiers, citizens, and Indians, and I am told... in the fall... nearly every house occupied by Californians will sell liquor." -- Brevet Major Samuel P. Heintzelman, August 3, 1849. Often set up in a spare room of an adobe, the grog shop was a social hub of San Diego life, providing customers with news and provisions. Floors were typically compacted dirt, and sometimes coated with ox or cattle blood to seal the surface. Soot from candles and oil lamps coated the adobe walls. Muslin fabric overhead prevented dust from falling into customers' drinks, and decorative paper, papel picado, hung from the ceiling. On the floor were spittoons for tobacco-chewing customers. A favorite watering hole was the one-room adobe at La Playa run by the one-eyed Massachusetts shoemaker, Thomas Wrightington. His pulqueria (grog shop) sold bread, fruit, dry goods, and shoes. The specialty of the house was a drink called pulque, made from the maguey cactus plant.
34. SDOTHM_070724_143.JPG: Old Town Tales: In 1850, the San Diego Town Council decided that it needed a proper jail. One bid for the construction came in at $3,000. The other bid, submitted by the County Sheriff Agostin Haraszthy (son of the Town Council president), was for $5,000. The high bidder won, and proceeded to build a one-room building made out of cobblestones set in mortar. There was only one problem: he left the cement out of the mortar. The jail's first prisoner was Roy Bean, the brother of the mayor, who later became famous in Texas as Judge Roy Bean. "The Law West of the Pecos," Bean didn't stay long, as he quickly dug out the clay mortar. A short time later, he stopped off in a nearby saloon to buy everyone drinks in celebration of his escape. Legend has it that future lawmen, rather than risk further damage to the jail, simply gave the keys to prisoners, hoping they would lock themselves up. A Public Hanging: On September 18, 1852, San Diego hanged James "Yankee Jim" Robinson for the minor crime of stealing a rowboat. How could this be? Several witnesses alleged that Jim "intended" to steal a schooner, the Plutus, anchored in the bay. They testified that they saw him rowing towards the vessel. The jury did not need much evidence to sentence Jim to death, given his reputation as an outlaw. It did not help Jim that two jury members were part owners of the Plutus. His two accomplices were sentenced to one year. Up to the moment of his hanging, he did not believe it was going to happen. Convicted unjustly on the grounds of intending to commit a crime. Jim, a big, strapping man over 6 feet tall, went to the gallows. Unfortunately, he died a slow horrible death, struggling at the end of a noose since the drop through the trapdoor was too short for his height. Thomas Whaley later built his house on the site of the hanging. The ghost of "Yankee Jim" is said to haunt the house.
35. SDOTHM_070724_149.JPG: The Newcomers: "The emigrants are pouring in from all directions... Our gorgeous little harbor is now seen riding four, five and six of the ocean's pride daily, and not infrequently two steamboats." -- Lieutenant Cave Johnson Couts, 1849 These "emigrants" came from all over -- New England, the American South, Mexico, South America, Ireland, Great Britain, and Germany. San Diego was a community in transition, beset by competing cultures and struggling with the shift from Mexican to American rule. The Gold Rush transformed the town into a welcome stopover for thousands of miners en route to the gold fields. The large number of men, with few women to care for their needs, encouraged the development of the ready-made clothing industry. Hotels, restaurants, billiard halls, tobacco shops, hardware, dry goods, and clothing stores opened to cater to the throngs of fortune-seekers headed for the Sierra gold fields. Trade in San Diego paled in comparison to the wholesale and retail hubs of San Francisco and Sacramento. It also rested on a fleeting customer base. Once the Gold Rush ended, many businesses went bust. Games and Gambling: "Gamblers and gambling life here Sunday and no Sunday... They set up a Monte Bank in the evening; piles of doubloons... large lumps of gold." -- HMT Powell, English Printer, 1850 The rush for riches transformed San Diego as thousand of gold-seekers stopped on their way to San Francisco and the "diggings." Striking it rich -- "Nature's great lottery" -- emboldened these fortune seekers to take chances. Grog shops and saloons offered them shots of whiskey for 25 cents, the best "cegars" and pies, cakes, beefsteaks, and coffee. Newspapers, billiards, cards, and wagers of every kind were available. Monte, poker, and faro were the most popular card games. Some Californios, like Maria Antonio Machado, converted their adobe homes into commercial enterprises.
36. SDOTHM_070724_150.JPG: A Displaced People: "A Spanish circus made its appearance soon after my arrival. The spectators included nearly all the population of the town... The Americans & Spanish occupied one side of the corral and the Indians squatted on the ground on the other." -- Mary Chase Walker, Mason Street School's first teacher, 1865 After the U.S.-Mexican War, tensions mounted as growing numbers of settlers squatted on Indian rancherias (villages) and officials levied taxes on their livestock. In 1851, volunteer militia units crushed an Indian uprising over these injustices, led by the Cupeno leader, Antonio Garra. Considered a hero by Southern California tribes, Garra was later executed in San Diego. San Diego's common council passed laws removing Indian-made "brush houses" and authorizing the arrest of "all vagrant Indians" without work for more than 24 hours. Unable to pay the fine or bail, they were contracted to labor on public works or for private parties until their debts were worked off. Children were sometimes kidnapped or more often bound over to non-Indian households by justices of the peace. Indian men toiled as vaqueros, farmhands, rag collectors, laborers, and deck hands. Women and children worked as domestic servants, laundresses, and cooks until the 1860s, when Chinese and Irish domestics began to replace them. Most of the surviving bands became virtual "nomads of the desert." Under state law, native peoples could not marry whites, testify for or against them in court, or carry firearms -- even to hunt.
37. SDOTHM_070724_155.JPG: Rise of An American Town: "There have been no births, no marriages, no arrivals, no departures, no earthquakes, nothing but the usual number of drinks taken, and an occasional 'small chunk' of a fight, to vary the monotony of our existence." -- John Phoenix, San Diego Herald, 1853 In the aftermath of the 1849 Gold Rush, soldiers, gamblers, and settlers of every stripe crowded into the little pueblo. Driven by dreams of opportunity and national destiny, the newcomers quickly overwhelmed and transformed the town. Some residents enlarged adobes and converted them into commercial enterprises. Prefabricated wood-frame buildings, brought by ship from the East around the Horn, were reassembled in San Francisco and shipped to San Diego. Land prices soared with properties constantly changing hands as speculators sought to make their fortunes. The American introduced new civic institutions. A new courthouse handled disputes over property titles, estate transfers, and non-payment of debts. In 1850, the town built its first jail, and the following year published its first newspaper, a weekly called the San Diego Journal. Clipper ships moved seagoing freight quickly. Stage lines reduced travel times, and steamships ferried passengers to the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands and East Coast.
38. SDOTHM_070724_179.JPG: Old Town Changes, 1865-1872: "At recess, the Spanish girls smoked cigarettes and the boys amused themselves by lassoing pigs, hens & chickens. For a week before a bull fight, the boys were more or less absent, watching preparations, such as fencing up the streets leading to the plaza. -- Mary Chase Walker, Mason Street School's first teacher, 1865 Inflated expectations fueled Old Town San Diego's growth in the wake of the four-year long U.S. Civil War. The frontier settlement attracted Eastern, European, Chinese and Jewish immigrants, who brought new architectural styles, business practices, customs, and religious beliefs. The two-story Railroad Building, owned by Louis Rose, a German Jewish businessman, was the town's commercial hub. Investors, like Rose, expected Old Town to be connected to the future transcontinental railroad -- a dream that never materialized. The county's first public school opened on Mason Street in 1865. Three years later, William Jeff Gatewood founded the San Diego Union in a pre-fabricated wood framed building, shipped around the Horn. Upstairs in the Whaley house, the Tanner troupe, San Diego's first theatrical company, performed dance, farce, comedy, and minstrel shows.
39. SDOTHM_070724_180.JPG: The Express Stage Stop: "Our stages were the Concord type, miserable things to ride in. The motion made the passengers sea-sick, and the dust was terrible." -- Katie Leng, passenger, San Diego to Los Angeles Delivery of mail, express packages, and passengers on the "road from nowhere through nothing to no place" was a challenge. Semi-weekly mail delivery by horseback from Yuma began in 1854. On August 31, 1857, the first overland coach arrived from San Antonio, Texas. People cheered, bells rang, and cannons boomed on the plaza. The "Jackass Mail" had completed the 1,476-mile trip, connecting Old Town to the nation. In 1867, Albert Secley started a Los Angeles-to-San Diego line. Stages ran along the 130-mile coast route, stopping overnight at San Juan Capistrano. Express companies, such as Wells Fargo & Co., used his services. Seeley maintained the route at his own expense, broke unmanageable horses, and hired only the best drivers. Road hazards, inclement weather, and occasional holdups sometimes delayed stage arrivals. In 1869, Seeley purchased the Bandini adobe, remodeling it into the two-story Cosmopolitan Hotel for overnight passengers. He also built a livery stable next door to house the horses and coaches.
40. SDOTHM_070724_185.JPG: The Ranchos Disappear: "Our inheritance is turned to strangers -- our houses to aliens." -- Juan Bandini, Southern Californian, April 11, 1855 With the gold rush, thousands of newcomers, frustrated by misfortune, sought new opportunities on the land. In 1851, Congress created a Board of Land Commissioners to confirm Mexican land claims. The law allowed rival parties, including the U.S. government, to challenge the board's rulings in court. Women property owners under Mexican law were especially vulnerable. Juliana Lopez de Osuna waged a twelve-year court struggle against the U.S. government before the Supreme Court upheld his claim in 1856. None of these women spoke English fluently. The hand-drawn maps (disenos) vaguely defined the boundaries of their ranchos, and they lacked the finances to defend their claims in distant courts. Legal costs, high property taxes, droughts, and the collapse of the cattle market in the 1860s led to the breakup of the rancho system.
AAA "Gem": AAA considers this location to be a "must see" point of interest. To see pictures of other areas that AAA considers to be Gems, click here.
Description of Subject Matter: The McCoy House is used as the major museum in the park. It also includes gardens which are designed to show the various ages of plantings.
Bigger photos? To save server space, the full-sized versions of these images have either not been loaded to the server or have been removed from the server. (Only some pages are loaded with full-sized images and those usually get removed after three months.) I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
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