2006-2007 Orange Book: Internet Directory
History

Valley Center History

Franciscan padres noted the natives were peaceful, lived on acorns harvested from the many oak trees. The ground the higher civilization than most of the surrounding tribes in the area.

Before California became a state Mexico made enormous land grants that became ranchos of the short-lived "Days of the Dons" in the early 1830's. One rancho was the Rancho Guejito y Canada de Palomia or Guejito Ranch. A 13,000 acre grant was made in 1845 to Jose Maria Orozco. The Guejito Ranch area, near San Diego Wild Animal Park, is still largely pristine. It is the only Mexican land grant still existing in its original state. It has changed hands many times but is still used for cattle raising.

The area called Valley Center was actually several communities in the last decades of the 19th century, including Vineyard, Lilac and Bear Valley. The seven school districts in the area (Lilac, Mountain View, Watkins, Valley, Victor, Vesper and Bear Valley) formed the Valley Center Union School District in 1918.

The first application made for a post office in Valley Center was in the name of Bear Valley in 1874.

It was so-called because of a legend that says a man killed an enormous 2200-pound grizzly bear on the property shortly after the Civil War. The name "Bear" was dropped because there was another town in Colorado named "Bear Valley."

The name was changed to Valley Centre in 1878, which it remained until 1887 when the spelling became what it is today.

In those days post offices were the center of the community. The first one in Valley Center was located at the corner of Lilac & Old Road.

Rancho Lilac was the site of the smallest post office in the United States. The post office, which still exists, was not much bigger than a phone booth. It functioned until about 1912. The property changed hands many times and eventually was purchased by Col. Irving Solomon in 1945, who raised Hereford cattle. Solomon was instrumental in the formation of the United Nations.

Valley Center children have attended high school at the Escondido High School District for over a hundred years. In the early 1920's about a dozen student went to high school in a "bus" that was actually a Dodge half-ton pickup truck with a special body and two benches along the sides.

The Valley Center Cemetery has been used since the early 1880's. Eventually the property was given to the community and a cemetery association was formed to care for it.

The Hide-Away Lakes area was once the site of one of the world's largest turkey ranches, the Mizpah Turkey Ranch. Here upwards of 75,000-200,000 birds were raised and processed and shipped all over the country in the 1920's.

Children once used the property where the VC Community Hall stands as a one-room schoolhouse. When the school district formed in 1918 there were 40 students.

The school burned down in 1921 and the community pulled together and through volunteer efforts and contributions built the existing community hall and school. Although not used as a school today, the building is still the focal point of many community activities and the home of the Valley Center Community Services District.

Valley Center remained quite sparsely populated until the formation in 1953 of the Valley Center Municipal Water District. The valley was fortuitously near one of the pipelines of the newly created California Aqueduct.

This large supply of water allowed the community to expand in a big way into farming citrus and later avocado. Up until recently 85% of the water sold by the water district was for agricultural purposes.

Today Valley Center is approaching a population of 20,000. Valley Center Road is due to be expanded someday soon to a four-lane road. The community is also working towards building a high school. This would help complete the process of making Valley Center a self-sufficient community.