Unforgettable: Long Ago San Diego
Lost and Found Onboard the flagship San Diego, Sebastían Vizcaíno hadn’t seen the Santo Tomás in 41 days. Before his expedition left Acapulco to chart the California coast in 1602, the old Santo Tomás had …
Water Everywhere Sebastián Vizcaíno began charting the California coast on May 5, 1602. Three ships crossed the Gulf of California, from Mazatlán to Cabo de San José. After several tries, they finally cleared the cape …
Of Miracles and Grave Misfortunes It had to be a miracle! As Sebastián Vizcaíno’s three ships neared the bay at Cabo de San José, a fog curtained the shoreline, and the ships separated beyond hailing …
Three ships nodded with the tide in Acapulco Bay. The San Diego, Santo Tomás, and Tres Reyes were light draft vessels, able to anchor in shallow waters. Each had been careened — flopped on its …
By rights, we should call San Diego “San Miguel,” after the archangel who evicted Lucifer and his minions from heaven. At his first landfall in Upper California — September 28, 1542 — Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo …
Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo never received full credit for exploring the Pacific Coast, complained historian Henry R. Wagner. In 1602, 60 years later, Sebastián Vizcaino sailed north, covered the same territory, and “arbitrarily changed” Cabrillo’s findings. …
“Strange things are happening to this land,” said Luisa Moreno in 1949. “Yes, tragically the unmistakable signs are before us…who really love America. And it is we who must sound the alarm, for the workers …
She thought she’d finally found a home. For two decades, Luisa Moreno abandoned her private life and championed the rights of workers. She zigzagged around the country, protesting, organizing, and negotiating for labor unions: garment …
Drury “Drew” Bailey and the Founding of Julian City, Part Two In 1858, asked to write about why “A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss,” Drury “Drew” Bailey compared it to “the wanderer who starts…with bright …
Drury Bailey and the Founding of Julian City, Part One On November 10, 1602, Sebastián Vizcaíno sailed into San Miguel Bay. He renamed it “San Diego,” after his flagship and the saint of Alcalá. For …
Civilization and Its Malcontents “Julian was never the hell roarin’ town commonly associated with mining camps,” wrote Dan Taylor in 1939. And that’s been pretty much the image ever since. Even so, the lure of …
After gold had been discovered in the Cuyamacas, ranchers accustomed to outback solitude witnessed an eerie parade: would-be miners trudging up an old Indian trail from Santa Ysabel to Julian City. The steep and rocky …
’Twas Gold that Made ’Em Do It “Enchanting visions of the good to be accomplished,” an unnamed author wrote in Hutchings’ California Magazine (1857), “of pleasures to be enjoyed, turned [a miner’s] footsteps toward the …
The Life of a MinerIn August of 1870, when Louis Redman went to pick wild grapes along a creek over the mountain from Julian, he happened upon the American Dream. Something glinted in the rust-colored …
When he was ten miles from Placerville, in 1851, gold fever struck J.D. Borthwick hard. Five men slung heavy pickaxes by the roadside. They looked like “so many grave diggers,” but much more determined. Borthwick, …
Albert Seeley ran the U.S. Mail stage line from San Diego to Yuma and Los Angeles. In 1868, Seeley bought the Bandini residence in Old Town. When Alonzo Horton heard Seeley wanted to convert it …