San Dieguito Heritage Museum
San Dieguito Heritage Museum
450 Quail Gardens Drive
Encinitas, California
760-632-9711
More info: website
Founded in 1988, the San Dieguito Heritage Museum collects, preserves and interprets the local history of the San Dieguito river area, which includes Leucadia, Encinitas, Olivenhain, Cardiff, Solana Beach, Del Mar, and Rancho Santa Fe.
Ten thousand years ago, a group of Indians we now call the San Dieguito lived in the lagoons of this area. Later, Spanish rancheros raised longhorn cattle on the surrounding hills and in the valleys, and in the 1840’s, a land grant of 8,825 acres called Rancho San Dieguito was given to Juan Maria Osuna.
The center of this Rancho would be near today’s Rancho Santa Fe. Just north of Rancho San Dieguito, a 4,431-acre parcel of land was given to Don Andres Ybarra in 1842 by Gov. Juan Bautista Alvarado, and this was called Rancho Las Encinitas. These two ranchos and some surrounding land were settled and farmed by Europeans and American citizens from eastern states starting in the 1880’s, and this entire area became known as San Dieguito, which means "Little San Diego".
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