The History of Places: San Marcos, California

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Welcome back to another fascinating blog post here at Tenacious Genealogy! Today’s post won’t focus specifically on genealogy, but rather one of the places that we (or our ancestors) may have lived in. In particular, San Marcos, California.

The History of Places – Why It Is Important For Genealogists and Family Historians

A lot of times, when researching my ancestors (or even just browsing on Google Maps, tbh), I have stumbled upon places I had never heard of or didn’t know existed. And then I get curious. The questions start flooding my brain…

• Why did people settle here in the first place?
• Why did my ancestors settle here?
• What was life like for them?
• What is this place like now?
• Why was this place named what it was named?
• What part did my family play in this history of this place (or were they just passing through)?
• How important was this place to my family members who lived there? 

So on and so forth…

And as lovely as Wikipedia is and as helpful as it can be, sometimes the information can be a little… lackluster. Or not exist at all.

Which is not fun when it’s 3 in the morning and you MUST. KNOW. EVERYTHING. about whatever place you are now obsessed with researching.

That’s where I come in. While I’m not about to say I know everything about the places I talk about, I’d like to think that this is a good starting point for whichever place the post is on. You’ll even find links to other resources about the place that you can browse.

So to start off, I’m going to delve into the history of a little place called San Marcos, California.

I’m going to assume (as dangerous as that might be) that unless you are from San Diego County or the surrounding areas, that you, my dear reader, might not have heard of San Marcos before.

That’s okay. Until I moved to Southern California, neither had I.

San Marcos, California – A History

San Marcos, California is a small (small for California, that is) college town in northern San Diego County. In 2010, its population was just shy of 84,000. This isn’t impressive until you realize that as late as 1970, San Marcos only had about 3,000 – 4,000 residents. That’s fewer people than currently go to the California State University campus in town (CSUSM). So in forty years, San Marcos has grown more than sixteen-fold.

Being as it was rural until fairly recently (and there are still outlying areas that are that way), it goes without saying that San Marcos was originally a farming/ranching area.

The Early History of San Marcos

Legend has it, that San Marcos is named such because Spaniards from the local mission (San Luis Rey) ‘discovered’ it on the feast day of St. Mark (April 25th) in 1797 after chasing natives who stole sheep from them. As such it was officially named ‘Los Vallecitos de San Marcos’ or ‘The Little Valleys of Saint Mark’.

The area became part of one of the many California ranchos in 1840 when it was granted to Jose Alvarado. After his death in 1846, the rancho changes hands several times. (In 1860, a man by the name of Cave Johnson Couts owned the rancho.) During the 1850s, one Major Gustavus Merriam created the first permanent settlement in the area, making the land (what would later become San Marcos) a land of milk wine and honey.

(Fun fact: Merriam went into the honeymaking business, both because it was lucrative and because the local vaqueros were less likely to harass bees that would sting them.)

By the 1880s, more settlers had arrived (mostly German and Dutch) at Merriam’s behest and in 1883, one John H. Barham officially created San Marcos. Interestingly enough, four years later, the whole town was moved when the Santa Fe Railroad laid tracks one mile away from the center of town. However, by the early 20th century, San Marcos was a bonafide SoCal farming town with all the amenities a respectable farmer or rancher could want.

San Marcos in the 20th Century and Now

For the first half of the 20th century, San Marcos stayed a sleepy little SoCal farming town, making its money through dairy products, poultry, honey and other delectable products. It wasn’t until 1956 when water from the Colorado River made its way to San Marcos, that the town started to grow.

In the early 1960s, a little over 2500 people lived in San Marcos, but by the end of the 1970s, that number had grown to just over 17,000. While farming and ranching was the backbone of the community for several generations, by 2010, some of the biggest employers in the area were education related (San Marcos Unified School District and Cal State San Marcos, to name a few), medically related (Kaiser Permanente) or general manufacturing (Hunter Industries).

In the present day, San Marcos has continued to grow. The student population at CSUSM was just over 17,000 in the fall of 2017 and the overall population of San Marcos is estimated to surpass 100,000 by 2020.

Five Fun Facts about San Marcos

Nearby Places of Interest for History Buffs

• San Marcos Heritage Park & Museum (Also the home of the San Marcos Historical Society)
• Leo Carrillo Ranch Historic Park (in Carlsbad, but an example of North County history and historic restoration in general)
• Escondido History Center (technically not San Marcos, but a lot of their history and presentations deal with subjects that were part of San Marcos history)
• Rancho Buena Vista Adobe ( in nearby Vista, but a restoration and recreation of rancho life similar to what would have been going on in the 1840s)
• San Diego Archaeological Center (in Escondido and deals with the history of San Diego County for the last 10,000 years in general.)

Places of Interest for Genealogists

• San Marcos Historical Society – located within Heritage Park, SMHS is open three days a week in the afternoon and has a few collections about the early settlers of the area and their families.
• North San Diego County Genealogical Society – A much larger genealogical society based in Carlsbad. It has a multitude of collections dealing with the local history and genealogical resources of North San Diego County.

Additional Resources

Here is a list of several books dealing with the history of San Marcos and the surrounding environs that I highly recommend, for anyone interested in learning more.

San Diego County Place Names, A to Z

 Questions? Comments?

Questions? Comments? Have any ideas for other places I should talk about? Let me know in the comments! And if you like what you’ve been seeing here on Tenacious Genealogy – please subscribe to our email list. Not only will you stay up to date with the latest blog posts, but you’ll also get access to freebies such as ’10 Tips for Starting Your Genealogy’ and other fun ‘subscriber only’ items!