Chula Vista, CA news and local guide

People of the San Dieguito complex lived in the Otay Valley about 10,000 years ago, and a site the Spanish called Otai was occupied as far back as 7,980 years ago. Yuman-speaking people moved into the region around 3000 BC, and later the Kumeyaay built the village of Chiap, or La Punta, by the mudflats at the south end of the bay. Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo sailed into San Diego Bay in 1542. Chiap was a center of the Kumeyaay revolt against the Spanish in 1775 and was abandoned by 1776. The land became part of the 1795 grant called Rancho del Rey, later Rancho de la Nacion. From 1829 it was divided among Rancho Janal, Rancho Otay, Rancho de la Nacion and Rancho La Punta. In 1873 the Army ran a telegraph line from San Diego to Fort Yuma through Telegraph Canyon.

More about Chula Vista

The San Diego Land and Town Company developed Rancho de la Nacion land as a 5,000-acre town. The first house went up in 1887, and ten were finished by 1889. The name, roughly "beautiful view" in Spanish, was suggested by James D. Schuyler, designer of Sweetwater Dam. The dam, finished in 1888, irrigated the farms, and a retired University of Wisconsin professor introduced lemons. For a time Chula Vista was the largest lemon-growing center in the world, and the Barber and Cordrey houses survive from that period. In 1889 the town became home to the first watch factory west of the Mississippi. Sources Wikipedia: Chula Vista, California