About Old Town State Historic Park

Old Town in San Diego is free to visit and is worth a walk through at least once. It is kind of like if Colonial Williamsburg was Mexican and slightly more fun. There is usually a mariachi band playing somewhere and the place turns up for Cinco de Mayo and Dia de los Muertos. You can shop for Mexican cultural gifts or you can eat at one of their festive restaurants. It is a cool place to get some “ancient” history about a city who in the grand scheme of things feels like it is in its infancy (in a good way).

Best Parts

• Learning history
• Grandparents visiting
• Free things to do
• Dia de los muertos

Behind The Counter

A few things to note:

One, Old Town is not the original site of the first settlement in California. The first settlement in California was a military outpost up the hill from Old Town called El Presidio, founded in 1769. Old Town is rather the site of the early pueblo that started around the 1820s, when European settlers were feeling safe enough to move away from El Presidio and start a little town just down the hill.

Two, Old Town never had more than a few hundred people in it. Ever. From the 1820s to the 1870s (when Alonzo Horton moved to the region and started Actual San Diego by building a city in what is now downtown) Old Town, aka San Diego, was just a podunk backwater. Therefore, we feel the true history of San Diego as a city does not start until the abandonment of Old Town, around the 1880s.

Three, we’re not sure any of this matters but it is interesting.