History of Arroyo Grande, California
The earliest inhabitants of the Arroyo Grande valley were Chumash Indians, who conducted extensive trade with other Native American tribes at considerable distance. A photograph appears in Jones book taken in Arroyo Grande of the last known speaker of the native Obispena Chumash language.
The first European to see the area was Spanish explorer Juan Cabrillo. The Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa was established nearby, and agricultural activities expanded into the area. The Arroyo Grande valley was found to have particularly fertile ground, and was given the name for "wide riverbed" in Spanish.
Francis Ziba Branch, originally from New York, saw the area on a hunting expedition during the period when California was part of Mexico. Branch married María Manuela Carlón, and this marriage entitled Branch to file claim for a Mexican land grant. In 1836 he and his wife and baby son moved onto Rancho Santa Manuela. They were managing a successful cattle ranching operation when California became a U.S. territory, and then a U.S. State. But some years later they suffered financial difficulties during a drought when many cattle died. They sold off smaller parcels of land to settlers.
In 1862, the San Luis Obispo Board of Supervisors established the township of Arroyo Grande. Businesses developed along a road called Branch Street to serve local agriculture. A railroad depot was built in 1882. The city of Arroyo Grande was incorporated on July 10, 1911.
History of San Luis Obispo County
The prehistory of San Luis Obispo County is strongly influenced by the Chumash people who had significant settlement here at least as early as the Millingstone Horizon thousands of years before the present age. Important settlements existed, for example, in many coastal areas such as Morro Bay and Los Osos.
Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa was founded on September 1, 1772 in the area that is now the city of San Luis Obispo.
San Luis Obispo County was one of the original counties of California, created in 1850 at the time of statehood.
The Salinas River Valley, a region that figures strongly in several Steinbeck novels, stretches north from San Luis Obispo County. The remote California Valley near Soda Lake is the region most untouched by modernity. Travels through this area and the hills east of highway 101 during wildflower season are very beautiful and can be incorporated with wine tasting at local vineyards.
A Timeline of San Luis Obispo County History
1542 Cabrillo and party enter Morro Bay, name Morro Rock
1769 Portolá expedition passes through the area
1772 Fages leads Spanish expedition to area to secure bear meat for settlements at Monterey and San Antonio
1772 Junípero Serra founds Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa, 5th in the coastal chain of 21 missions
1797 Mission San Miguel Arcangel founded (16th mission)
1821-22 California becomes Mexican as Mexico gains independence from Spain
1837-1846 Mexican land grants are made to settlers in area which will become SLO County
1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo; California becomes territory of United States
1850 U.S. statehood for California; San Luis Obispo becomes one of California's original 27 counties
1857 Cholame Valley (in SLO County) is epicenter of the historic Fort Tejón earthquake
1858 Vigilante committee formed
1860 County population is 1,782
1862-64 Severe drought kills off most of the cattle on the great ranchos
1864 Portuguese sea captain Joe Clark establishes San Simeon whaling station
1866 Steele brothers commence dairying operations in "cow heaven"
1867 Captain James Cass to Cayucos
1870 County population is 4,772
1873 Construction begins on Harford's Wharf (now Port San Luis) and narrow gauge railway; County Courthouse completed
1874 Ah Louis opens wooden store on Palm Street, City of SLO; Piedras Blancas Lighthouse completed
1875 Developer C. H. Phillips subdivides Rancho Morro y Cayucos into town lots
1878 Beginning of gold rush in the La Panza area
1879 Establishment of County Hospital and Farm
1880 County population is 9,142
1886 Southern Pacific Railroad line arrives in San Miguel, then Paso Robles
1889 El Paso de Robles Hot Springs Hotel replaces early thermal center; Southern Pacific service is extended to Santa Margarita
1890s Quarrying begins at Morro Rock
1890 County population is 16,072; Point San Luis Lighthouse completed
1894 Southern Pacific service is extended to San Luis Obispo, ending stage service over the Cuesta Grade; U.S. requires registration of Chinese residents, who must carry Certificates of Residence or be deported
1900 County population is 16,637
1901 The "gap" in railroad service between SLO and Los Angeles is finally closed; California Polytechnic School founded
1903 California Polytechnic School holds first classes
1906 Union Oil builds first oil pipeline to Avila Beach
1907 Oilport, at site of present Shell Beach, completed in November, then destroyed by heavy surf in December
1910 First flight of an airplane over city of SLO, in a July 4 demonstration
1911 Legal daily limit for Pismo clams set at 200
1913 E.G. Lewis founds Atascadero colony
1922 Construction of Blue Star Memorial Temple in Halcyon
1923 Anderson Hotel opens in city of SLO (July)
1925 Milestone Inn, later known as the Mo-Tel Inn, opens as the country's first "motel"
1926 Union Oil Tank Farm Fire (April 7)
1928 SLO High School built on Murray Hill
1920s-30s: Colony of "Dunites" flourishes in Oceano/Nipomo dunes
1936 W.P.A. begins work on north breakwater, making causeway to Morro Rock; "Migrant Mother" photographed in Nipomo by Dorothea Lange
1938 Small colony of sea otters spotted in remote area off Big Sur Coast; their recovery will re-extend their range south along SLO coast
1939 Hoover brothers and Art Thompson establish San Luis Obispo airport
1940 County population is 33,246
1941 Camp San Luis is expanded to meet wartime training needs; Union Oil tanker Montebello sunk by Japanese submarine off coast near Cambria (December 23)
1942 U.S. Executive Order 9066 forces relocation of 800 County residents of Japanese ethnicity
1946 First Pismo Beach Clam Festival
1950 County population is 51,417
1958 Hearst Castle opens as state park; Alex and Phyllis Madonna open the Madonna Inn
1960 County population is 81,004
1962 SLO High School building condemned as seismically unsafe; new high school building completed 1963
1965 County population is 102,486
1970s Ongoing protests re licensing of Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant
1985 Las Pilitas fire burns 75,000 acres
1988 FAA control tower added to San Luis Obispo County airport
1990 Elephant seals establish new colony on beach near Piedras Blancas
1990 (August 2) City of San Luis Obispo becomes first place in U.S. to ban smoking in bars.
1993 Chapel Hill at Shandon completed by Judge William P. Clark and his wife Joan Clark
1997 Record grape harvest focuses attention on development of local wine industry
1998 Unocal agrees to $18 million clean-up of oil seepage under Avila Beach
1999 Beginning of Cal Trans project to widen Cuesta Grade portion of Hiway 101
2000 County population is 246,681 (U.S. Census)
2001 Cal Poly celebrates 100th anniversary of its founding
2003 (June) Closure of SLO County General Hospital (est. 1879)
2004 Voters defeat library funding measure and measure to ban modified crops; inroads made by "big box" stores; housing prices continue upwards