The history of Encinitas runs from thousands of years of Kumeyaay settlement around the coastal lagoons, through Spanish exploration and a Mexican land grant, to railroad-era farming towns. In 1986 five separate communities voted to become a single city.[1]
Indigenous people
Archaeological shell middens around San Elijo Lagoon show that people hunted and gathered there at least 8,500 years before European contact. They relied on scallops, clams, shark, bonito and abalone.[2] Around Batiquitos Lagoon, evidence of habitation goes back more than 9,000 years.[3] In historic times the coast was Kumeyaay territory. When the Portolá expedition passed through in 1769, it met residents of the village of Jeyal (or Heyal) near San Elijo Lagoon. Another village, probably called Hakutl, lay in what is now New Encinitas.[1]
Spanish and Mexican periods
Gaspar de Portolá, governor of the Californias, led the 1769 expedition that opened the overland route north from San Diego. His party named the valley Los Encinos for the oak woodland along the route later called El Camino Real. The same expedition named the southern lagoon San Alejo, after Saint Alexius, the origin of the modern "San Elijo".[1][2]
After Mexican independence, the government granted Rancho Las Encinitas to Andrés Ybarra in 1842. The grant covered land that is now Olivenhain and New Encinitas, and the city takes its name from it.[1] Cattle ranching dominated the region through the early 1800s.[2]
Railroad towns
American settlement accelerated in the 1870s and 1880s. The lands around Batiquitos Lagoon opened to homesteading in the 1870s.[3] The MacKinnon family settled what became Cardiff in 1875,[4] and Jabez Pitcher formed the town of Old Encinitas in 1881.[1] The California Southern Railroad, later part of the Santa Fe, built the Encinitas depot in 1887. The building survives, moved to 510 North Coast Highway, where it now serves as a coffee shop.[5] Coast Highway 101 followed in 1891.[2]
Pitcher also developed Moonlight Beach as a resort, with a bathhouse, playground, boardwalk and dance hall. Between 1915 and 1925 it drew North County residents for horse races and picnics; at low tide, drivers could take a Model T up the sand all the way to Oceanside.[6]
Leucadia, Cardiff and Olivenhain
Each of the other communities has its own founding story. A San Diego development company gave Leucadia its name, after the Greek island of Lefkada, and gave its streets classical names such as Hymettus, Neptune, Phoebe and Daphne.[7] In 1909 the Boston developer J. Frank Cullen bought MacKinnon land and sold lots for $30. His wife Esther, a native of Cardiff, Wales, persuaded him to call the town Cardiff-by-the-Sea and to name streets after British cities. Later, the "Composer District" added twelve streets named for musicians.[4] Olivenhain, German for "olive grove", was settled by a German colony in the 1890s. Its meeting hall is still in use.[8]
Flowers, faith and film
For much of the 20th century Encinitas was a flower-growing town. The Ecke family moved its poinsettia business to Encinitas in 1923. Until the 1990s it held a near-monopoly on the potted Christmas plant, thanks to a grafting technique that produced fuller, bushier poinsettias.[9]
The La Paloma Theatre opened on February 11, 1928, with Mary Pickford attending. It was among the first theatres to install sound equipment for "talkies".[10] In 1929 Miles Minor Kellogg built the two boat-shaped houses now listed as the Encinitas Boathouses, using timber salvaged from the Moonlight Beach Dance Parlor and the Encinitas Hotel.[11] After returning from India in 1936, Paramahansa Yogananda moved into the Self-Realization Fellowship hermitage on the bluff above what surfers came to call Swami's.[12][13] Also in 1936, local communities voted to create the San Dieguito Union High School District. Its first school, designed by Lillian J. Rice, opened in September that year.[14]
Incorporation and after
By the 1980s the coastal communities were growing quickly and governed by San Diego County. In 1986, 69.3 percent of voters approved incorporating historic Encinitas, New Encinitas, Leucadia, Cardiff and Olivenhain as a single city.[1] In November 2012 voters approved a directly elected mayor with a two-year term, and the first such election was held in 2014.[1]
Recent decades brought conservation alongside growth. Batiquitos Lagoon was restored to full tidal flow beginning in 1997.[3] The North Coast Corridor project rebuilt the road and rail bridges across San Elijo Lagoon.[2] The Boathouses joined the National Register of Historic Places in 2019.[11] The city has also been repeatedly sued over housing policies that critics say undermine state affordable-housing law, a dispute covered on the housing page.[1]
Common questions
- When was Encinitas founded?
- Old Encinitas was laid out by Jabez Pitcher in 1881. The modern city was incorporated in 1986.
- Who were the first people in Encinitas?
- The Kumeyaay and their ancestors. Shell middens show use of San Elijo Lagoon at least 8,500 years ago, and the Portolá expedition met residents of the village of Jeyal in 1769.
- Why is Encinitas called the flower capital?
- The Ecke family's poinsettia business moved to Encinitas in 1923 and dominated the U.S. poinsettia market until the 1990s, and flower nurseries were a major local industry.
See also
Notes and sources
- Encinitas, California. Wikipedia.
- San Elijo Lagoon. Wikipedia.
- Batiquitos Lagoon. Wikipedia.
- Cardiff-by-the-Sea, Encinitas, California. Wikipedia.
- Encinitas station. Wikipedia.
- Moonlight State Beach. Wikipedia.
- Leucadia, Encinitas, California. Wikipedia.
- Olivenhain, Encinitas, California. Wikipedia.
- Poinsettia. Wikipedia.
- La Paloma Theatre. Wikipedia.
- Encinitas Boathouses. Wikipedia.
- Paramahansa Yogananda. Wikipedia.
- Swami's. Wikipedia.
- San Dieguito Union High School District. Wikipedia.