Qualla: The Hill That Started California

The Hill That Started California: Introduction

Fri, 08 May 2026 04:45:08 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The hill above Old Town San Diego is where the United States Pacific coast begins — not geologically, but historically. On May 14, 1769, Gaspar de Portolá established the Presidio of San Diego here, creating the first permanent European settlement on what would eventually become the American Pacific coast. Everything that California became starts on this particular hill, with this particular decision, made by a Spanish captain who had walked north from Baja California with a group of soldiers and missionaries.

Image: Public domain

The Hill That Started California: The Spanish Garrison

Fri, 08 May 2026 04:45:08 GMT

Photo credit MarkusMark, CC BY-SA 3.0. The presidio was a military installation — a fortified garrison designed to protect the mission established nearby by Junípero Serra and to assert Spanish sovereignty over the territory. The combination of military garrison and religious mission was the standard apparatus of Span...

Image: MarkusMark | CC BY-SA 3.0

The Hill That Started California: Abandonment and Preservation

Fri, 08 May 2026 04:45:08 GMT

Photo credit JERRYE AND ROY KLOTZ MD, CC BY-SA 3.0. As San Diego's civilian population grew in the early nineteenth century, people moved down from the hill to what became Old Town. The presidio became increasingly irrelevant to daily life; by 1835 it had been effectively abandoned. The adobe structures that had housed the garriso...

Image: JERRYE AND ROY KLOTZ MD | CC BY-SA 3.0

The Hill That Started California: The Serra Museum

Fri, 08 May 2026 04:45:08 GMT

Photo credit Unbinilium-322 Dibromide, CC BY-SA 2.5. The Serra Museum that Marston built at the presidio summit is not itself a historic structure — it was constructed in 1929, a century and a half after the original garrison stood here. But it serves the function that the historic site requires: it provides a visible landmark on t...

Image: Unbinilium-322 Dibromide | CC BY-SA 2.5

The Hill That Started California: Presidio Park Today

Fri, 08 May 2026 04:45:08 GMT

Photo credit LoLface82, CC BY-SA 4.0. The park that occupies Presidio Hill today is quiet in the way that historically significant but not heavily touristed places tend to be quiet. The views from the summit — of Mission Valley, of Old Town below, of the bay and the hills beyond — are among the most comprehensive ava...

Image: LoLface82 | CC BY-SA 4.0