|
Ventura’s
History
By
Christy Weir
On Easter morning, March 31, 1782, Father Junipero
Serra raised a cross on the beach near the Ventura River mouth. This year
(2007) we celebrate the 225th anniversary of the founding of Mission
San Buenaventura (the ninth California Mission, Father Serra’s last) and
the birth of our beautiful city on the coast.
The Mission’s stone church was completed in
1809, the hub of a thriving compound with orchards, gardens and a 7-mile
aqueduct. The good soil, excellent
climate and ingenious irrigation system contributed to abundant crops of
apples, pears, peaches, pomegranates, bananas, coconuts, figs, sugar cane and
grapes, and passing ships stopped to replenish their food supplies. The largest
ranching operation in California, the Mission owned 10,000 head of cattle and
harvested 9,000 bushels of grain annually. A sketch dated 1829 shows a busy
village, with outbuildings, a small chapel, grazing cattle, Chumash brush
dwellings, and Serra’s cross standing on the hill behind the Mission as a
marker for travelers.
By 1856, the Mission was surrounded by several
hundred pear trees and 70-80 houses, inhabited mainly by the native Chumash and
Mexican settlers. Over the next few
decades, the small town of San Buenaventura expanded around the Mission
property, using the church as its parish sanctuary. By the 1860s, Main Street boasted a
boardwalk, four stores and 6-8 rum shops and restaurants. The Spears Saloon (at
Palm and Main) was used for town council meetings after the city of San
Buenaventura was incorporated March 10, 1866.
The population grew. New residents were attracted by
the burgeoning oil and agricultural industries as well
as the natural beauty. An editorial in the town newspaper in 1885 stated:
“Ventura has no superior, if an equal, on the
Pacific Coast. Aside from possessing a climate the most delightful and
healthful, it has a beautiful beach, stretching for miles along the waterfront.
There are shady groves, picturesque canyons, wild gorges and limpid streams
innumerable.”
By 1900, stately stone bank buildings and red brick
storefronts (many still in use today) and Victorian-style hotels lined the
several blocks of Main Street east of the Mission. The adobe walls of the
Mission Quadrangle still enclosed courtyards, fountains, orchards and
gardens. A building boom over the
following two decades gave us the nearby 1901 Moorish-influenced Bard Memorial
Hospital on Poli Street, the unrivaled 1913 Beaux Arts-style City Hall (no more
meetings in the saloon) and the Ventura Theater, a 1928 Spanish Revival movie
palace.
Today, looking down from the Grant Park Cross at our
lovely, historic town, I’m reminded that San Buenaventura is fortunate to
be a city blessed with a picturesque coastal landscape, a rich culture and a downtown
that has retained its vibrancy for more than two centuries. Buildings have been
constructed, demolished, renovated, reused. Dusty
streets were paved, parks created, electric lights and water lines installed,
businesses prospered. Over the years, downtown Ventura has evolved into the
largest business district in the County (over 600 businesses within fifteen
square blocks).
I see the bell tower of the Mission, and am grateful
that the original heart of Ventura has remained vital, consistently providing a
cultural and spiritual sanctuary for its citizens--
in the dynamic,
continually-changing downtown, a lasting sacred space.
| |
