Institute
for Regional Studies of the CaliforniasInstitute
for Regional Studies of the CaliforniasMuch of the area covered by this atlas was granted to Santiago Argüello in 1829 by the newly independent Mexican government and parts were used by the family for ranching activities. In 1848, the international boundary was established across the Tijuana River Valley. A Mexican customs post was established in 1874 at the border crossing of the ranch to tax the trade between San Diego and Baja California. In the 1870s and 1880s, land promoters began subdividing land and establishing town sites in the United States near the border as part of the general land boom of San Diego and Southern California. In 1906, the San Diego & Arizona Eastern Railway began to construct a line from San Diego to Yuma that traversed the border. Although not completed until 1919, the railroad stimulated growth in the area. Tijuana, established in 1889 through the support of the Argüello family, had emerged as a small but important center that was linked to the real estate boom of Southern California. By 1910, Tijuana's population was barely 700 individuals.
The current town site of San Ysidro was established in 1909 by William Smythe, a San Diego developer, as a utopian, self-sustaining agricultural colony called Little Landers. This unique settlement flourished from 1909–1916, surviving an initial lack of infrastructure and a series of battles in Tijuana related to the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Disaster struck in January 1916 when the Hatfield flood destroyed the homes and farms of the families in Little Landers. The colony was unable to recover and many of the original residents sold their holdings to the employees of the Sunset Racetrack, which had been recently established on the Mexican side of the border. Almost overnight, San Ysidro became a tent city that accommodated a sudden influx of employees who lived in the United States and traveled to work across the border. In the early part of the twentieth century, Tijuana had grown as an attraction for visitors from San Diego for horse racing, boxing matches, curio sales, and the hot springs of Agua Caliente.
By World War I, border commerce was well established, in part due to the growing military presence in San Diego. The postwar recession and immigration restrictions adopted by the United States crippled the border economy temporarily. U.S. prohibition of the sale of alcoholic beverages between 1919 and 1933 brought a boom to Tijuana and the border as Americans from as far away as Los Angeles and San Francisco visited the area for alcohol, gambling, and other entertainment. The opening in 1927 of the Agua Caliente hotel, casino, and spa in Tijuana, followed by a golf course and race track in 1928, further increased cross-border tourist traffic. Despite this activity, the San Diego-Tijuana border area was severely affected by the Great Depression and the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, as well as the ban on gambling and the nationalization of some foreign businesses in Mexico in the mid- to late 1930s. Many Mexicans residing in the United States returned voluntarily or were repatriated during the Great Depression, beginning in 1929. In 1930, returning Mexicans founded Colonia Libertad in Tijuana, adjacent to the international boundary and to the east of the port of entry.
World War II brought a great increase in defense activities in San Diego and the border region. Tijuana's economy recovered through its entertainment industry that catered to U.S. military personnel and by supplying labor to meet the wartime shortages in the United States. As part of the military buildup in San Diego, the Navy established Brown Field on Otay Mesa and Ream Field in Imperial Beach. The former is now a civil aviation field and the latter is used by the Navy for training its helicopter crews.
The Bracero Program began in 1942, allowing thousands of Mexicans to work in temporary agricultural jobs in the United States. It also attracted thousands of migrants from throughout Mexico to Tijuana and the border. Many of these individuals remained as permanent border residents after the program was terminated in 1964. In 1965, Mexico implemented the Border Industrialization Program that led to the development of the maquiladora, or assembly plant, industry as a way to create employment along the border. By the early 1980s, maquilas emerged as the most dynamic element in Tijuana's economy. By 2000, the industry employed some 170,000 workers in Tijuana. Jobs in the maquiladora sector and potential employment in the United States helped attract continuing waves of migrants from central and southern Mexico, assuring the rapid growth of both Tijuana and the border area.
During the 1940s, Tijuana's population nearly tripled from 22,000 to over 65,000. The 1950s saw the development of the residential zone of Chapultepec and the 1960s saw that of Playas de Tijuana. Both areas were upper and middle class residential areas that contrasted with the irregular settlements that flourished in canyons and on the outskirts of the urbanized area.
In 1954, a major road (later Interstate 5) was built from San Diego to the border with Tijuana to handle the increase in traffic. Eventually, this border crossing became the busiest port of entry into the United States. The City of San Diego was interested in integrating the town of San Ysidro in order to have better control of its border. As a result, in 1957 San Diego expanded its territory, incorporating San Ysidro and a narrow strip of land under San Diego Bay, thereby establishing contiguity between downtown San Diego and the border.
Tijuana's Mesa de Otay began to develop significantly in the 1970s with the establishment of a university and technological institute, an expanding international airport, constantly growing residential areas, and the Ciudad Industrial, Tijuana's largest center of maquiladoras. In 1985, the port of entry on Otay Mesa-Mesa de Otay was opened to meet the growing needs of trade and commerce in this area of the border.
The channelization of the Tijuana River in Mexico in the early 1980s also opened a large area of Tijuana near the international border to development. The project located modern shopping centers, hotels, government offices, private sector office buildings, the Cultural Center, and residential areas in Tijuana on the former flood plain, displacing irregular settlements, auto dismantlers, and mixed commercial activities. Although the channel was originally planned to extend into the United States and to the ocean, environmentalists forced U.S. authorities to rescind the plans and to create the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve at the mouth of the river. This prevented plans for development in the lower river valley and also derailed efforts to extend a freeway across the valley to Playas de Tijuana for a proposed border crossing to link with the new toll road to Ensenada. The creation of the estuary reserve assured that future border developments in San Diego would concentrate on Otay Mesa-Mesa de Otay, farther to the east.
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| Migule González curio store,Tijuana. C. 1912. San Diego Historical Society Photograph Collection. |
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| San Ysidro border crossing, looking north from Tijuana. 1922. San Diego Historical Society Photograph Collection. |
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| Little Landers with Tijuana River Valley in the background. 1911-1915. San Diego Historical Society Photograph Collection. |
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| Little Landers half-acre farm with house, garden, and chicken pens. C. 1912. San Diego Historical Society Photograph Collection. |
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