Then and Now: An outside look at Poway in 1890

A copy of “An Illustrated Record of Southern California,” a weighty tome of much more than 900 internet pages and posted in 1890, was not long ago donated to Mates of the Poway Library. It created its way to the Poway Heritage Museum for analysis.

The ebook devotes two internet pages to a glowing description of Poway in the last ten years of the 19th century.

The Good friends of the Library will be getting a new household for the substantial volume. We fortunately have accessibility to a electronic version, which we were have downloaded for the museum from an tutorial web site.

The description of Poway very a lot corresponds with coverage in the Poway Progress newspaper of the 1990s.

We have taken excerpts for a glimpse back at what was then Poway.

“Twenty-two miles northeast from San Diego and twelve miles from the Pacific Ocean, sheltered from the sea winds and banked spherical towards the inflow of the frosty air currents descending seaward from the substantial inside altitudes, lies Poway valley. In the old mission data it is alluded to as “Paguay,” and known as a resort of the herds of the padres.

This title also seems in files of the departmental federal government at Monterey. Being an Indian identify, it of course existed only as a sound prior to the Spanish profession, when it need to have been specified its initial prepared expression.

The early webpages of the current county information find the money for curious illustration of how assessors and other county officials, disregarding the Spanish orthography, had recourse to a variety of spellings to indicate the recognized pronunciation, amid which the present form of “Poway” has ultimately been adopted by general usage…

The community embraces about 60,000 acres of good tillable land, acquiring an average elevation of 500 feet, above which the quick encompassing elevations generally rise 300 ft larger. Additional to this may be believed a
t the very least an equivalent extent of land adapted to pasturage.

Only a fortunate mixture of situation prevented Poway remaining caught in the strangling loop of a Mexican grant, which, like a lariat, was thrown about and held in relentless bondage approximately every significant tract of tillable land in San Diego County. Remaining a part of the Government area, the valley was occupied as a stock selection by Philip Crosthwaite in 1858, and by his successors…”

“It is a valley with out a saloon, but with a Great Templars’ business of about fifty associates, which has preserved its weekly meetings devoid of omission, except from tension of weather, through its whole existence of around eleven several years, and crafted itself a commodious lodge hall at a value of some $800, which, with the full ending, will soon be elevated to $1,000.

3 church societies, Methodist Episcopal, Congregational and Baptist, with resident pastors, sustain frequent products and services and safe an attendance of around one-3rd the people today residing in just the spot of effortless accessibility.

The Methodist Episcopal Church [Community Church], costing $2,500, is recognizable as a person of the most tasteful structures in the county’s settlements. An excellent school, whose numbers will shortly need graded departments, is very well preserved.”

The short article cites several crops for which Poway gained renown, notably peaches and muscat grapes, and nursery crops. However…

“The absence of irrigating and railroad facilities mainly accounts for the restricted planting of citrus fruits now clear but it has been of adequate extent and length to show the flattering prospects of the long term. Existing prospective customers warrant confidence that these prospects will before long get a stimulus which will result in their assuming the tangible type of achieved info.

Situated upon the declared routes of the two Pamo and the San L
uis Rey water businesses in their solution to the comprehensive table lands of the ex Mission and to San Diego, Poway may be congratulated on its prospect of an early and plentiful water provide below the most favorable conditions.”

The arrival of an outside the house water supply would not come about here until finally 1954.

“With its common annual rainfall of practically fifteen inches and copious wells of exceptional h2o at simple depth, it is significantly less dependent upon this sort of amenities than several other localities, but its residents are not indifferent to the advantages of a liberal source of this character at prepared command, and important designs are now matured awaiting its possession.

Surveys of both the California Central and Southern Pacific railroads lengthen as a result of this position, and it is on the projected route of the Poway, Elsinore & San Diego Railroad. Early transportation facilities, nevertheless, are extra promisingly foreshadowed in the study now being designed by means of Poway to Escondido in the fascination of the Pacific Seaside Railroad and in the software of Governor Murray for terminal amenities in San Diego for a proposed line whose favored route is indicated by his preceding endeavor to invest in the Pacific Beach front Railroad.

Need to this result in the not improbable relationship with the Utah coal fields, the ability to procure inexpensive gas may perhaps be appeared on as possible to lead to the establishment of smelting functions at this stage for the reduction of the deposit of fine iron ore acknowledged to exist on the edge of the valley.”

This was the dream upon which Poway was created. Its failure in the mid-1890s sent the valley into a decline from which it wouldn’t get better for virtually 60 decades.

“In common with many other localities Poway created a city internet site in the course of the exhilaration of the now a great deal disparaged boom. But, unlike many other these tries, this a single, acknowledged as Piermont, responses a organic need and has demonstrated its all-natural ideal to an existence and a title, by its focus and handle of the business enterprise facilities of the neighborhood in whose geographical center it is found.”

“…a publish office environment with mail by day by day stage lines involving San Diego and Escondido afford(s) completely ready communication with the exterior earth. A common and drug keep, large and well-geared up resort, the Terrace, of admirable locale, community hall, livery stable and blacksmith shop, furnish customary conveniences.”

The Piermont subdivision is the internet site of today’s Previous Poway and Outdated Poway Park. A map of the subdivision is on display screen there in the Poway Heritage Museum, complete with the proposed rail traces.

Shepardson is president of the Poway Historical and Memorial Society.