Chula Vista

Frank M. Roseman, Peter J. Watry

• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN:
  9780738580166
• eBook ISBN:
  9781439624937
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

After many decades of being an agricultural community and lemon capital, an aircraft-parts manufacturer moved to Chula Vista. In 1940, Rohr Aircraft Corporation arrived and, due to the demand for workers and housing for them, the agricultural town was on its way to becoming a bedroom community. The city grew rapidly due to the development of a large ranch and the construction of 25, 000 homes.

CHAPTER 1

VICTORIAN HOMES AND CITY VIEWS

This photograph is of a family posed on the front steps of their early orchard home in Chula Vista in the late 1800s. To the right is the orchard of lemon trees. Note the Victorian gingerbread architecture on the porch, the eave facade, and the roof. Homes of this type were abundant in the city in the late 1800s, as were the lemon groves on the properties.

Built about 1896, the Augusta Starkey house is at 21 F Street on a large property surrounded by trees the owner brought from around the world. The Starkey family owned the home from 1932 until 1990. The new owners have updated the kitchen, but the rest of the interior of the house, like the outside, remains original. The original carriage house and separate servants quarters still exist behind the main house.

This view looking east is of what was to eventually become part of Chula Vista and is the grasslands that were used by the Otay Ranch for grazing cattle. The cattle appear as dots in the lower right-hand corner of the picture above. Upper Otay Lake, which was near the Otay Ranch house, is close at left, and Lower Otay Lakes are seen farther to left in the background. The area today has been filled by the Rollin Hills development.

The James Johnson house was built in 1888 and is still at 525 F Street, a major thoroughfare. Johnson was a lemon grower, and he invented one of the first machines that could be used to wash lemons in the packinghouses. This historic Victorian home was painted in its original colors and has been faithfully maintained with its original gingerbread. That air conditioner is not the gingerbread we write of!

On the bayfront on both sides of H Street is the Rohr Aircraft Company, which was established in 1941. Below, in this southwest view over Rohr in the 1950s is one of the many mobile home parks (lower left corner) created during World War II. Rohr extends from G Street (foreground) to J Street to the left. In the upper left are the Western Salt Company ponds. The highway is the Montgomery Freeway, which was later upgraded and became Interstate 5.

This Queen Ann–style home is commonly called “The Boarding House” because that is what it was in the early lemon-growing years in Chula Vista. The need for places for the lemon grove workers to live led to the establishment of such rooms-for-rent houses. After this lovely restoration, aluminum siding and framed windows made the home more modernized, but also as it looked in the days it was built.

This above view of the Montebello Ranch centers on the Boltz home surrounded by lemon orchards, as taken in the 1920s. The driveway climbing from the lower left edge leads to the home, which still exists today. F Street rises from the lower right, and E Street/Bonita Road runs diagonally across the top. First Avenue cuts across the photograph just out of sight at the lower left. As with the rest of Chula Vista, homes have replaced ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• CHAPTER 1 - VICTORIAN HOMES AND CITY VIEWS
• CHAPTER 2 - STREET SCENES
• CHAPTER 3 - CULTURE AND FAITH
• CHAPTER 4 - STRICTLY COMMERCIAL
• CHAPTER 5 - PUBLIC FACILITIES