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    Vista
    Vista
    Vista
    Ebook169 pages55 minutes

    Vista

    By Lois Vaughan Cavalier

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    The vast California land grants of the mid-1800s have long since been divided, yet Vista remains "The Home of the Ranchos." Two imposing adobe ranch houses that served as the earliest centers of northern San Diego County social and business life now stand fully restored as focal points for educational and cultural events. Until 1926, Vista's rich soil and near-perfect climate lacked one critical element: an adequate, reliable water supply. The formation of Vista Irrigation District resulted in the celebrated arrival of an ample supply of water and marked the commencement of an agricultural empire. Vista was soon the avocado capital of the world, with citrus, field, and flower crops flourishing as well. The home-building surge following World War II led to its incorporation as a city in 1963, which enhanced Vista's ongoing reputation as a thriving, family-oriented community that excels today in commercial, recreational, and cultural endeavors.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateSep 18, 2012
    ISBN9781439636497
    Vista
    Author

    Lois Vaughan Cavalier

    Author Lois Vaughan Cavalier is a former editor of the Vista Press, the historic newspaper first published in 1926. Her years in the newsroom provided an extraordinary opportunity to gain a true perspective of the history of her community and to know many of the families who shaped it. She is a dedicated member of the Vista Historical Society board of directors.

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      Book preview

      Vista - Lois Vaughan Cavalier

      Wieser.

      INTRODUCTION

      To study the history of Vista is to fall in love. Fact by fact, footprint by footprint, there emerges a people of extraordinary integrity, ingenuity, and generosity.

      Vista was truly a late bloomer. With the exception of the two original land grants by Gov. Pio Pico, Rancho Buena Vista and Rancho Guajome, and the arrival of such industrious individuals as Bernard and Jules Jacques Delpy from France in the late 19th century, Vista remained a small, sleepy village.

      The first real sign of awakening was the arrival of the Vista Land Company in 1912. The quarter-million-dollar corporation, organized by the Hartley-Martin Real Estate Company of Redlands, bought a major portion of Rancho Buena Vista land, laid out some streets, and built the 26-room Vista Inn. The showplace hotel, later termed in a Vista Press advertisement as the Ritz Carlton of San Diego County, became a center of social and business life for the entire northern San Diego County area. Old Highway 395 passed through Vista then, and the inn sat on a knoll at the corner of Santa Fe Avenue and what is now Main Street, where the highway made a turn. It took two days to travel from San Diego to the Riverside–San Bernardino area, so the inn was a popular place to spend the night.

      It wasn’t until the early 1920s that other astute land developers began to understand the potential of the gently rolling hills, fertile soil, and near-perfect climate. They also discovered that there was very little irrigation water and that most of the town’s domestic needs were provided by the Vista Water Company, founded in 1911, from some wells near Buena Creek.

      Until 1923, when the Vista Irrigation District was formed, most of the land was only good for the dry farming of such crops as oats and hay. By 1926, the Vista Irrigation District board of directors had found a way to slake the thirst of the rich soil by bringing water from Lake Henshaw, 40 miles away. After a grandiose celebration in February 1926, which brought thousands of visitors from all over the region, Vistans began to till and plant and nurture until Vista was the avocado capital of the world and extolled as well for its abundant citrus groves and field crops.

      Many of these early settlers were experts in their field, in horticulture or land sales or building or publishing. They were mainly family people, so they secured their own land and built their own homes along the newly laid-out dirt roads. It was a glorious mix of races and nationalities, all working together for the common goal of creating a thriving community.

      The Vista Press, the community’s first newspaper, stalwartly supported every good undertaking in the burgeoning community starting on September 24, 1926, the day experienced newsman M. Z. Remsburg and his son, Everett, published their first edition. No story was too insignificant to make the news in those days. People didn’t just die, with a few statistics recounted about their lives. In bold headlines, often on the front page, the sorrow and support of the entire community were extended to the grieving family. The April 3, 1930, Vista Press bragged, Vista has produced enough rhubarb this season to make 835,600 pies. There was no information about how that accounting process was conducted.

      Those who wanted a new business simply put an advertisement in the Vista Press and opened their doors; there was no need for an address, for everyone in town knew where to find everything. If there was need for a building to house a new enterprise, they built it. If there was need for a church, citizens of like mind got together and met where they could until they raised funds for their own place. The ladies created the Vista Garden Club and the Women’s Current Events Club, later renamed the Woman’s Club of Vista. When there was need for a library, Nellie Acker willingly housed the 50-book collection in her own home.

      An amazing number of these early families, and subsequently their families, generation after generation, have remained in Vista. Most of them say they simply can’t find a place that is half as nice.

      After World War II, the verdant groves began to give way to houses. Servicemen and women who had been stationed in the area went home to places like Minnesota and North Dakota and remembered soaking up the sun in January on the beach in Oceanside or Carlsbad. They decided that a community like Vista would be a great place to raise a young family.

      Early Vistan Ervin Ries and his family, who first arrived in Vista in the 1930s, recall hearing the bells of Mission San Luis Rey and the Pacific Ocean surf from their home on the hillside above West Vista Way, in the center of town. Then Highway 78 was built from Oceanside to Escondido in the early 1960s, right through the center of Vista, and the sounds of traffic replaced the sounds of chimes and breaking waves.

      Vista was governed by the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, who made decisions about local issues that residents felt it was time to control themselves. In 1962, Vista led all unincorporated cities of San Diego County with building permits totaling $5,596,600, and by the early 1960s, the decision was made to incorporate. On January 28, 1963, the community of Vista became the city of Vista. It later also became home to the San Diego County courthouse complex and the community of Shadowridge and developed the prospering business park in

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