Fun Facts

College Neighborhoods / Rancho Ex-Mission San Diego

1. The current College Neighborhoods area was part of the Mission San Diego de Alcala rancho lands.



2. The Spanish Colonial missionaries moved the mission to its current location in 1771. Today’s College Neighborhoods area was generally used for grazing mission livestock.



3. In 1846 the last Governor of Mexican California, Pio Pico, granted the Mission “rancho” lands to Santiago Arguello, former commandant of the San Diego Presidio. The general boundaries of which ranged from today’s Mira Mesa (Rancho Penasquitos) on the north to National City (Rancho Nacion) on the south, Interstate 805 on the west (Pueblo Lands), and El Cajon Valley (Rancho El Cajon) to the east.



4. After Arguello’s death in 1862, title to much of the property was held up in various law suits until the final partition case closed in 1884.

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Alvarado Estates

1. Home of SDSU President.



2. The exclusive hilltop residential development overlooking Mission Valley and Grantville was conceived by noted San Diego architect Lloyd Ruocco, and first subdivided in 1948.



3. Home of a private airstrip in 1960’s - Avion Street is aptly named as it was originally an airstrip thought to be needed for the targeted “professional” residents whom might own private aircraft.



4. Some impressive examples of San Diego’s most notable Modernist residential architecture can be found in Alvarado Estates; including homes designed by Richard Neutra, Henry Hester, and Lloyd Ruocco.



5. Alvarado Estates is the only private, gated community within the College Neighborhoods.

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Baja Canyon

1. The steep canyon lands south of College Heights and the SDSU campus but north of the El Cerrito Community restricted development of the canyon until after World War II. Before that it was popular area to ride horses from the local stables east of College Avenue.



2. The Baja Canyon consists of a mix of post war contemporary tracts from very modern to neo-traditional styles.



3. The area along with College Heights was started by Leonard Drogin’s Harmony Homes Company. Drogin took full control of the company in 1954 and developed the Campanile Terrace and College Glen tracts in the canyon.



4. The very Modern Contemporary “box homes” of Leonard Drogin’s College Glen tract on Baja Drive were designed by noted Modernist architects Palmer & Krisel. A more contemporary model designed for Drogin’s Pacifica Tract on Mt. Soledad won national design awards. A few such models are found in nearby College View Estates.



5. By this time Drogin was one of the larger tract developer companies in San Diego opening tracts in La Mesa, Oak Park, Lemon Grove, Chula Vista, Clairemont, Del Cerro, and Soledad Mountain.



6. In the 1960s additional tracts such as J.R. Shattuck’s College Woods at the south and east side end of Campanile Drive and College Valley to the west end of the canyon helped usher in larger 2-story and split level contemporary style ranch homes.



7. The Dass Construction Company, one of the larger San Diego developers of the 1960s, also produced homes on the 4700 block of Campanile Drive and Ashby Street under the name Northcliff Mark II. These are based on their award-winning “Dream Home” models that also can be found in University City.

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Chollas Heights

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College Grove

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College Park / SDSU

1. The San Diego State Teachers College chose the current location of SDSU in 1928 after an extensive 3-year campaign/contest that considered viable location offers from Balboa Park, Encanto, Pacific Beach, La Mesa, Rolando, and Fletcher Hills.



2. Noted Los Angeles developer Alphonso Bell sold the original 300 acre site to the State with hopes of replicating his profitable development of Bel Air next to the new UCLA campus. Bell and his partner Hal Lloyd hoped to build a lakeside resort (Mission Palisades) in Alvarado Canyon that would include golf courses, polo fields, and an exclusive suburban development surrounding the new campus.



3. The new Montezuma Mesa SDSC Campus opened in 1931 in the depths of the Great Depression. Financial difficulties forced Bell to withdraw his support and the resort plans fell through. The 3-story Bell-Lloyd building formerly located where the new trolley station is buried today, was the only piece of Bell’s plans for a “Westwood-like” commercial development north of Montezuma along College Avenue. Lloyd was able to build one tract of the proposed College Park residential tract along College Avenue south of Montezuma Road to Pontiac. Today along College Avenue and Cresita Drive are a few of the larger, 1930s Revival Style homes that Bell and Lloyd had thought would surround the new campus.



4. After World War II, the growing SDSC community spread west to 55th Street along Linda Paseo and Hardy Drives (College Park Unit 3) and south of Montezuma in the College Heights tract between 54th and Campanile Drives.



5. The original homes in College Park #3 and College Heights were mostly minimal Contemporary and typical Ranch Style 1950s tract homes—but one lot on Dorothy Drive features famous Los Angeles’ modernist architect Craig Ellwood’s only San Diego project.
   



6. The original Jack-In-The-Box restaurant location was established on 63rd St in Est. 1951

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College View Estates

1. College View Estates was one of local developer Leonard Drogin’s earliest “high end” tracts, featuring both pre-built and custom homes. The tract was popular with many professionals and SDSC professors.



2. In addition to the original 1950s tract homes designed by Charles & Arthur Scriebner of Chicago, College View Estates also includes custom and “custom tract” homes designed by noted architects such as Henry Hester, Palmer and Krisel, and Robert Ferris.



3. Architectural styles in College View Estates include Ranch Style Tract, Contemporary, Modern, and Earth-Integrated Organic—one of the earliest earth-integrated homes in San Diego County.



4. Several of the homes in the Aztec Heights subdivision feature Palmer & Krisel’s California Contemporary style home built for Drogin’s “Pacifica” tract on Mt. Soledad. This design won Life Magazine’s Best Designed Home of 1960 award.



5. Drogin, although he developed tracts in Del Cerro, Chula Vista, and La Jolla, lived for many years in College View Estates.

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El Cerrito

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La Mesa Colony

1. La Mesa Colony was the main subdivision platted and owned by the San Diego Flume Company. The Flume Company looked to bring water from the Cuyamaca Mountains to the “La Mesa Reservoir” (now Lake Murray) for supplying customers in El Cajon Valley, the “Mesa” east of San Diego and the growing City. This included a wooden flume line from El Monte around El Cajon Valley to today’s Grossmont Pass where it was storage in a series of reservoirs.



2. The Colony’s “La Mesa” Townsite was platted along the “Cajon Road” from today’s 67th Street out to today’s 73rd Street on the east and west with its northern boundary on today’s Saranac Street and south on today’s Amherst Street. This was the original townsite for La Mesa.



3. The first public school, the La Mesa School, was established at the townsite in 1890 to serve the small rural farming community of citrus and poultry farmers.



4. After the San Diego & Cuyamaca Railroad built its road south and east of the area through old Allison Springs in the early 1890s, the name shifted east to the renamed La Mesa Springs--eventually becoming the City of La Mesa in 1912.



5. In 1906 the La Mesa School was renamed the La Mesa Heights School, reflecting the area’s need to identify itself from La Mesa Springs.



6. La Mesa Heights became a major poultry farming area in the 1920s and had its own Chamber of Commerce.



7. The original street names of the La Mesa Townsite were changed when the area agreed in a bitter and controversial set of votes to annex into the City of San Diego in 1928. (67th=Alice Street; 68th=Olive Street; 69th=Victoria Street; 70th=Lois Street; 71st=Helen Street; 72nd=Dora Street; 73rd=Isabella Street; Saranac=Vista Street; Mohawk=Santiago Street; Amherst=Ramona Street).



8. A year later the La Mesa Heights school was renamed John Muir Elementary. It is currently Harriet Tubman Charter School.



9. Much of the area outside of the original subdivision remained undeveloped until after World War II when small tracts of houses (such as Dennstedt Point) and later apartments filled in the area up to Alvarado Canyon.



10. The Alvarado Highway opened to traffic in 1950, taking the route of old U.S. Highway 80 off of El Cajon Boulevard. It is now the route of Interstate 8.

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Montezuma

1. Catoctin Street dates back to the 1887 La Mesa Colony Subdivision and follows its original route from the Cajon Road (El Cajon Blvd.) out toward the rim of Alvarado Canyon.



2. 63rd Street was originally the Adobe Falls Road that provided access to the Falls and associated ponds. These were used as unofficial Park lands for locals until the building of the Alvarado Highway (later Interstate 8) in the late 1940s.



3. Montezuma Elementary School opened in 1951 to meet the growing demand due to the rapid suburban development of the area spread out on both sides of the recently extended Montezuma Road.



4. Reservoir Drive originally led down and across Alvarado Canyon and out to La Mesa Dam (now Lake Murray Dam).



5. Although most homes in the area are similar model “tract homes,” Rockford Drive features one of San Diego architect Sim Bruce Richards most unique Organic style buildings and several unique “New Orleans Revival” style homes commissioned by Collwood Park developer Arthur McKee.

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Oak Park

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Redwood Village

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Rolando

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Rolando Park

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