Chapter 8

History of Santa Barbara

The History of Santa Barbara, California begins approximately 13,000 years ago with the arrival of the first Native Americans. The Spanish came in the 18th century to occupy and Christianize the area, which became part of Mexico following the Mexican War of Independence. In 1848, the expanding United States acquired the town along with the rest of California as a result of defeating Mexico in the Mexican-American War. Santa Barbara transformed then from a dusty cluster of adobes into successively a rowdy, lawless Gold Rush era town; a Victorian-era health resort; a center of silent film production; an oil boom town; a town supporting a military base and hospital during World War II; and finally it became the economically diverse resort destination it remains in the present day. Twice destroyed by earthquakes, in 1812 and 1925, it most recently has rebuilt itself in a Spanish Colonial style.

Pre-History

The area along the Santa Barbara Channel, both near the city of Santa Barbara and on the Channel Islands, has been continuously inhabited by the Chumash Indians and their ancestors for at least 13,000 years; the oldest human skeleton yet found in North America, ArlingtonSprings Man, was unearthed on Santa Rosa Island, approximately 30 miles (48 km) from downtown Santa Barbara. In more recent pre-Columbian times the natives had many villages along the shore, at least one of which (on present-day Mescalitan Island) had over a thousand inhabitants in the 16th century. They were peaceful hunter-gatherers, living on the region's abundant natural resources, and navigating the ocean in tomols, craft closely related to those used by Polynesians.