Temecula, California

The Spaniards first saw “the heat of the rising sun” in what would come to be known as the Temecula Valley in the 1790s. The mission at San Luis Rey came into being just shy of the next century. Thus the local Natives got the name Luiseños. Thereafter these tribes were converted and used as labor around the mission. The valley would eventually become a ranching area, and it continued to be known for cattle and sheep long after secularization in the 1830s, American conquest in the 1840s, and all other changes up to the 1960s. It was then that vintners began to reap the benefits of the region.

The 1840s and 1850s were a period of fighting and some lawlessness, but by the 1860s there began a reorganization of the area by the locals, of whom there were not many, as the 1860 census would indicate only 20 people in the town of Temecula, and 308 total if one counted the surrounding adobes. The American settlers and ranchers petitioned the federal government to remove the Natives, and eventually, after a number of relocations, they were placed on the Pechanga Reservation in 1882. This “place where the water drips” has become a waterfall today through the building of a casino.

Concomitant with the Indians' move to the reservation was the completion of the first railroad to reach Temecula. The California Southern Railroad's gang of 1,000 Chinese laborers completed this, and the area experienced a decade of prosperity, along with most of the rest of California. The 1880s were a period of growth for the whole state, as more easterners were attracted to the West Coast by fair climes and better railroad rates. However, the drought and economic depression of the 1890s squelched the dreams of many and the boom became a bust. The 1890s also saw San Bernardino and San Diego Counties lose land to the newly created Riverside County of which Temecula Valley became a part.

By the turn of the century, Walter Vail, who had moved into the area in the 1880s and leased land from John G. Downey (then the owner of most of the valley), bought up Downey's lands. What he got, albeit briefly, was a profitable wool operation as well as a cattle ranch. Walter did not live long enough to enjoy much of it as he died under the wheels of a tram in Los Angeles in 1906. His son, Mahlon, took over, and had opened a bank by 1914. At this time, there was a large migration of Mexicans into the Southwest, more of a diaspora as a consequence of the brutal civil war in their homeland. Due to this, the population, which by all accounts had remained at a fairly stable 600 people since the 1880s (excluding the local Pechanga Indians) nearly doubled.

Mahlon Vail had bought up more than 87,000 acres of the valley by 1947, and had built a dam on Temecula Creek in 1948. By then there were about 1,600 inhabitants, whites and Latinos, in the valley. The Vail family sold to Kaiser Aluminum in 1964. The latter called the area Rancho California, began development of housing, and sold land to vintners. Census figures show 2,773 people in the area in 1970, 11,530 in 1980, 27,099 in 1990, and 77,460 in 2000. In 1989, the City of Temecula incorporated.

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