Two Septembers figure in shaping the state and county we’re most familiar with today. Beginning in September 1849 delegates met in Monterey, California to create a constitution for a new state to be carved out of the territory won from the war between the U. S.A. and Mexico.

Over the following winter the first state legislature began meeting, and on February 2, 1850, they created the very first California County, San Diego. It’s worth remembering that with transportation of that time limited to foot, horsepower and boats, things like holding conventions and legislatures, not to mention surveying and marking off territorial boundaries, took a lot longer and might not be as precise. Which helps explain why the original San Diego County embraced what are today the counties of San Diego, Riverside, Imperial, San Bernardino and the eastern portion of Inyo County.

That would be the map of San Diego County on September 9, 1850, when California was admitted to the Union as the 31st state.

Sources for this post included San Diego: A Chronological and Documentary History, 1535-1976, compiled and edited by Robert Mayer, and San Diego County, California: A Record of Settlement, Organization, Progress and Advancement, by Samuel F. Black.

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Below is a close-up of part of a page from the 1880 United States Census for the Julian area of San Diego County:

It shows the entry for the family headed by Frederick Sawday. The data on the form tells us that he was 30 years old then. His wife Sarah, listed immediately below Frederick, was 29. They were both immigrants, born in England. Frederick’s occupation is listed as “grocer,” while Sarah’s is listed as “Keeping House.” But other historical accounts list them as both running a general store was well as keeping a flock of sheep.

Tending to livestock would come to be a predominant occupation for the family. Son George, three years old at the time of this census, got into sheep and then cattle ranching on a large scale. How large? A ranching history compiled for the state parks department in 2009 includes this quote from one of George’s nephews: “There is a story they used to tell about Uncle George that he could drive from the Riverside County line to the Mexican Border and never get off the land he either owned or leased.”

Sources: 1880 United States Census; and the book 240 Years of Ranching: Historical Research, Field Surveys, Oral Interviews, Significance Criteria, and Management Recommendations for Ranching Districts and Sites in the San Diego Region, by Sue A. Wade, Stephen R. Van Wormer, and Heather Thomson, 2009 California State Parks Department.

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As a history seeker, I’m always looking out for archives in which San Diego County’s history is being preserved. I recently learned of a new research facility, Brewchive. Founded in 2017, this branch of the California State University at San Marcos Library is dedicated to preserving the history of craft brewing in San Diego.

San Diego County has been proclaimed the craft brewing capital of the United States, with over 125 licensed brewers to date. More than a third of the county’s breweries, among them Stone Brewing, Karl Strauss and Lost Abbey, are in North County, which made CSUSM a logical choice to document their history.

The library has been actively collecting and digitizing historical documents and special pieces. While the initial focus has been on what library officials call the “New Brew Wave circa 1987-present,” the ultimate goal will be to become “a comprehensive archive of San Diego brewing history,” according to a recent statement by Judith Downie, CSUSM Special Collections and History Librarian.

To find out more, visit https://archives.csusm.edu/brewchive/ .

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There was a special section on Carlsbad in the January 1, 1916 edition of the San Diego Union. The focus of the section wasn’t about mineral springs or tourism, but about agriculture. Photos and text commented on how the community’s soil and climate were yielding abundant winter crops.

“Winter tomatoes, cucumber, chili peppers, rhubarb, pes and similar crops mature at ‘off-season’ dates in Carlsbad,” stated one article in the section. “Kitchen gardens in this vicinity have yielded fancy winter vegetables year after year. In fact Carlsbad will compare favorably with the best protected foothill sections—it is a veritable ‘winter garden.’”

The Union also noted an up-and-coming crop in the local fields, so new they had to refer to it by two names: “During the last five years the avocado (alligator pear) has held a commanding postion in the limelight with Southern California orchardists. Being of tropical origin, it is extremely sensible to extreme heat or cold. Carlbad has been pronounced the ideal spot to raise this fruit. S. Thompson, one of the first citrus men in the state to take up the avocado as a commercial proposition, is now setting out an orchard of eighteen acres. An adjoining tract, eight acres, is being used as a nursery, for avocado trees.”

In a few years Sam Thompson would help found the Carlsbad Avocado Growers Club. In October, 1923 the club sponsored the first Avocado Day, which became an annual event in the town until the eve of World War II. Avocados would be a major crop in Carlsbad until the late 1940s.

Sources for this post included historic San Diego County newspapers, the 1994 book, Carlsbad: The Village by the Sea, by Charles Wesley Orton, and the 1982 book, Seekers of the Spring: A History of Carlsbad, by Marje Howard-Jones.

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In a 1922 book on the history of San Diego City and County, historian Clarence Alan McGrew referred to Chula Vista as “one of the most attractive sections of San Diego County.” At that point in time the town had a population of around 2,000 people, and many of them were engaged in farming. McGrew referred to the city at that point as “the center of a great citrus-growing section, about 3,000 acres being devoted to that end and doing much to give the San Diego County high rank among the lemon producing districts of the United States.”

One of those lemon growers was William G. Brown, who had moved to Chula Vista in 1920 with his wife Emma and three young children. The family was well-traveled, having previously lived in Atlanta, New Orleans and the island of Cuba, where William Brown, a chemical engineer for the United Fruit Company, had served as a “General Superintendant of Sugar Manufacturing,” as his daughter Anita would note years later in an account for the Chula Vista Historical Society.

I mention them being well traveled as background for the anecdote of Anita’s which follows. Because the children, having experienced travel to a number of places while their father was on business, would have known something about city life as well as farm life. So here’s Anita’s anecdote, coming from a period when she would have been between about 8 and say, 15 or so, talking about play time with her slightly older and four-years-younger brothers:

“We had space all around us to play, but our favorite play area was the barn. There we could pretend we were on an elevator. We tied a thick stick to one end of a heavy rope. We sat on the stick and tossed the other end over a big beam in the hayloft. We took turns lowering each other down to the floor through the hay chute into the horse stall while calling out numbers of imaginary floors we passed going down. We enjoyed the activity until we grew too heavy for one another to handle, and we didn’t fit in the hay chute any more.”

An interesting snapshot of child’s play in one particular family in San Diego County in the early decades of the 20th century.

Sources for this post:

1. McGrew, Clarence Alan, City of San Diego and San Diego County: Birthplace of California, Volume I, Chicago and New York, American Historical Society, 1922.
2. Black, Samuel F., San Diego County, California: A Record of Settlement, Organization, Progress and Achievement, Volume I, S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1913.
3. The Chula Vista Historical Society Presents: Family, Friends and Homes, Chula Vista, Chula Vista Historical Society, 1991.