I’ve written before about how a lot of San Diego County communities began with a general store and post office. Often, one person might run the operation for decades. A good example can be gathered by perusing notices in historic newspapers.

From the early 1900s until around 1940, election notices giving polling locations for the Miramar area would often list “Store of John W. Vasey,” or “room adjacent to the post office,” which was in the same building as the general store. If Vasey’s store wasn’t the location for a particular election, you can bet that his name would still appear as an election inspector in his district.

John Wycliff Vasey and his wife Elizabeth immigrated from England to San Diego County in 1884. After first living in the city they moved in 1889 to the then very-rural Miramar area.

John and Elizabeth opened a general store while also engaging in farming, livestock raising, and apiary. John Vasey would be Miramar’s postmaster from 1919 until 1940.

The Vaseys raised a large family and by 1914 they had erected several houses in addition to their own, forming the basis of a close-knit community. A book on Miramar history by a longtime resident noted that “For about seven years the central group of houses were called Vasey Ville,” and that “A Vasey connection was in every one of the houses off and on until 1950.”

There’s an illustration of that connection in a list of polling places in the San Diego Union of October 10, 1950. John and Elizabeth Vasey had each passed away a few years before, but the polling place, adjacent to the post office, included Louise M. Vassey as an election judge and Charlotte Vasey as one of two polling clerks.

Sources for this post included historic San Diego newspapers, the 1984 book, Miramar Before the Planes, by Ruby Peters and the National Archives and Records Administration’s database U.S. Appointments of Postmasters 1832-1971.

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The Poway Valley in August of 1894 was dealing with an apparently severe dry season, as shown in the “Poway Points” column from the Poway Progress newspaper of August 4 which noted the movement of some long-time residents out of the valley.

“Mr. and Mrs. Belcher took their leave of Poway on Wednesday morning and started on their way for their former home in New Mexico,” stated the column, which added “They go by wagon the long distance in order to take along their horses and farm wagon at little expense and go provided with a good supply of provender [dry food for livestock] and water, two or three barrels to hold the latter, being rigged on the sides of the wagon. They expect to be six weeks on the way, following the line of the S. P. R. R.”

The same column noted that “Ernest Rickey has concluded to try life in another part of the world and has accompanied Mr. Belcher into the wilds of New Mexico in the region of the large cattle ranches. We trust his best anticipations will materialize.”

Some other residents were holding on.

“Dr. Hilleary is hauling water from his spring for his orchard trees,” stated the column, “and Mr. Savage is treating his orchard in a similar manner with water from Mr. Griswold’s tank.”

The column then closed with some characteristic humor, or commentary, or maybe both.

“Though the dryness of the season is likely to prove the occasion of a considerable shortage of crops in some lines of production, there is quite a crop hereabouts in the candidate line of goods. We are credibly informed that at least four candidates for the office of Supervisor for the Fourth district have sprouted and grown considerable, and expect to be in condition to be presented for consideration at the coming Republican county convention….”

Ah, history repeats itself.

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It may be hard to imagine San Diego County as a sparsely populated rural district. But a good illustration can be found in the following excerpt from a report in the San Diego Union of July 25, 1872 about a meeting the previous day of the county board of supervisors.

Among the items passed by the board that day was this: “Ordered that a new school district, to be known as “Bear Valley School District,” be formed…”

Some readers may recognize “Bear Valley” as the original name of today’s Valley Center. But check out the boundary lines for the Bear Valley district laid out by the supervisors back then: “Commencing at the N. W. corner of Wolfskill’s Ranch, then East to the dividing line between Wolfskill’s and San Bernardo Ranches until the same reaches San Bernardo River, thence up said river through San Pasqual Valley to the mouth of Pama canyon, thence up the canyon to the head of Pama Valley, thence in a westerly course taking in the whole of Smith’s mountain west of said line, thence south to the place of beginning.”

Then and now, that’s a pretty big chunk of real estate. “Wolfskill’s Ranch” is today the city of Escondido, “San Bernardo” is Rancho Bernardo.” The “Pama” refers to Pamo Valley, which is today part of Ramona. And “Smith Mountain” later became Palomar Mountain.

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It’s become a cliché to say that so many San Diegans came from someplace else. That even goes for some of our place names. Here’s one example.

An item in the January 18, 1876 San Diego Union described the rapid growth of “Fall Brook, a beautiful little spot in the upland midway between San Luis Rey and Temecula.” Just a year before, the Union reported, “there were three families and less than twenty persons all told there. Now there are fourteen families and a total population of sixty persons. A school district has been organized and a public school has been taught for some time in a house of one of the settlers.”

By early 1879 there was a separate “Fall Brook Notes” column in the Union, which included this entry: “Mr. C. V. Reche is trying to build up a little town here, He keeps a well stocked store.”

Vital Reche, originally from Canada and later Rochester, New York, had come to California with the Gold Rush and made some money running hotels in San Francisco and San Jose. But in 1867, he and his in-laws were back east, running a coal business in a Pennsylvania town called Fall Brook, named after Fall Creek, a nearby tributary of the Tioga River.

Reche seemed destined to live out his life there when, in 1869, he was diagnosed with cancer. The diagnosis was considered terminal, but his doctor suggested a milder climate might prolong his life.

Reche came to San Diego County and after settling briefly near Pala, he fell in love with some land further to the west down the San Luis Rey River. He homesteaded 160 acres that included a stand of live oak trees and had a creek running through it. Vital chose to name the creek, and later his homestead, after the Pennsylvania creek that had fatefully linked his business and family life: Fall Brook.

His health renewed, Reche was soon growing alfalfa, fruit and honey. He also established a hotel and general store.

Vital would live another 25 years beyond his terminal cancer diagnosis, and the name Fall Brook would be adopted by a school district, post office, and, changed to a single word, the whole surrounding community.

Sources for this post included historic San Diego newspapers and the archives of the Fallbrook Historical Society.

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Henry Fenton owned the Bandy Canyon Ranch in the San Pasqual Valley from the early 1900s until his death in 1951 at the age of 80. He left behind an unfinished memoir, which was incorporated into Henry Fenton: Typical American, a book written and privately published by his sister, Laura, in 1952 and now in the public domain.

Fenton was only eight years old and living in Iowa when his schoolteacher father’s sudden death forced his mother to send her young son to family members in California for support. He arrived in the San Pasqual Valley in 1879 and was immediately put to work as a farmhand on the San Pasqual Valley ranch owned by his uncle, William Thompson.

Young Henry would eventually own that ranch, but that’s a story in itself. For now, a brief anecdote from his memoir offers a snapshot of a day on the farm and young Henry’s interaction with the blacksmith in the nearby farm town of Bernardo.

Fenton arrived on the farm on July 18, 1879, and his first task was to help another young farmhand “bring a mule to the blacksmith for shoeing.” His companion, also a boy, “was trying to lead the mule on horseback,” recalled Fenton, “but the mule wouldn’t lead. The old man [Fenton’s uncle, William Thompson] told me to take a switch and start the mule away from the barn.” Fenton wound up walking along with the mule and rider several miles down to the blacksmith shop in Bernardo.

“We were late getting down there,” Fenton wrote, “and Billy Ober, the blacksmith, had a couple of horses to shoe, so it was noon before he could get started on our mule.”

The young farmhands hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and Fenton remembered that “about 1 p.m. I was feeling pretty empty.”

“The blacksmith gave us 20 cents—two great big dimes,” Fenton wrote, “and sent me over to the store to buy some crackers and cheese.”

That would have been the Bernardo General Store, which was near Ober’s shop, as seen in this drawing from a late 1870s book on southern California:

Fenton brought the crackers back to the shop and Billy Ober gave each of the two boys four crackers. He then “laid the cheese on the anvil and took the knife he had been paring the mule shoes with and cut the cheese as near the middle as he could. I remember watching him and hoping he would give me the piece with the curve in it, as it looked larger. And sure enough he did.”

You wouldn’t think the size of his hunk of cheese would have been the first thing he was thinking of, but hey, I guess it was a different time.

Sources for this post included the Fenton book, historic San Diego newspapers, and The Grapevine, newsletter of the Escondido History Center.

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