Chapter 1

Interesting Facts about Santa Barbara.....the most beautiful place on EARTH!

Santa Barbara is located about 90 miles (140 km) WNW of Los Angeles, along the Pacific coast. This stretch of coast along southern Santa Barbara County is often referred to as the "American Riviera" because its geography and Mediterranean climate are reminscent of the French and Italian Riviera coastline along the Mediterranean. The Santa Ynez Mountains, an east-west trending range, rise dramatically behind the city, with several peaks exceeding 4,000 feet (1,200 m).

By the early 1890s Santa Barbara had established its preeminence as a place to live and as a place to winter. The 1893 Baedekers referred to the city as the "American Mentone" and went on to note "It has a well-deserved reputation as one of the most attractive winter resorts in California, due to its mild, dry and equable climate, the beauty of its surroundings, the luxuriance of its roses and other flowers, the excellent bathing beach, and its pleasant society." Santa Barbara enjoyed an equally impressive reputation during the early decades of the nineteenth century when, along with Monterey to the north, it was the most important of the Spanish later Mexican bastions in California.