South San Diego - History

History

Before the arrival of the Spanish explorers, area of South San Diego was largely inhabited by the Diegueño people. The Diegueño, also known as the Kumeyaay, traveled the region this is evidenced by the shallow depressions in boulders that were used for grinding acorn into meal, that are found throughout the area.

John J. Montgomery achieved the first controlled flight when he successfully flew his glider aircraft from "Wheeler Hill" in Otay Mesa on August 28, 1883. A monument to his historic flights is known as Silver Wing Park, located on Coronado Avenue, just east of Beyer Boulevard., The Interstate 5 freeway in this region was later named the John J. Montgomery Freeway in his honor.

In 1957, the area comprising South San Diego was annexed by San Diego from San Diego County.

On July 18, 1984, in an event known as the San Ysidro McDonald's massacre, James Oliver Huberty, a 41-year old former welder from Canton, Ohio, committed a mass-murder of 21 people inside of a McDonalds restaurant in San Ysidro. The McDonalds site was razed in 1985. The site is now home to a Southwestern College satellite campus.

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    —Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)

    “The history of any nation follows an undulatory course. In the trough of the wave we find more or less complete anarchy; but the crest is not more or less complete Utopia, but only, at best, a tolerably humane, partially free and fairly just society that invariably carries within itself the seeds of its own decadence.”
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