Jan 18 11
Point Loma led the way to Old Town
In 1542, Portuguese explorer Juan Rodrguez Cabrillo docked his flagship at Ballast Point and became the first European to set foot in California. Ballast Point is a peninsula extending off the coast of Point Loma, which is now known as the spot “where California began.”Point Loma was not previously settled by the Native American tribes, due to the lack of fresh water. Europeans first set down in the San Diego River valleyhowever, the port for Mission San Diego was at Point Loma’s La Playa beach. From 1769 until the 1870s, La Playa was the spot where travellers arrived, eager to make a new home for themselves in the booming town of San Diego.Point Loma is best symbolized by its Lighthouse, which is now located in the Cabrillo National Monument. The Point Loma Lighthouse was built over 1854-1855, and was extinguished in 1891. The National Park Service relit the lighthouse in 1984 to celebrate its 130th birthday. Tourists can visit the lighthouse and see where the keepers lived. If they’re lucky, one of the volunteer re-enactors will be on handperhaps Captain Israel, lighthouse keeper from 1871-1892, or some of Cabrillo’s shipmates.Besides the lighthouse, Cabrillo National Monument also features a statue of the explorer, sculpted by Alvaro de Bree in 1939. The piece was made for the Portuguese government, which later donated it to the United States government. Each October, Cabrillo’s landing is reenacted at Ballast Point and followed by celebrations at the national monument, such as those that the explorer himself might have partaken in.The cliffs of Point Loma have yielded dinosaur fossils from the Late Cretaceous periodone of the few sites in California to do so. Further inland, the peninsula is home to several neighborhoods, centered on Point Loma Village. This is a popular spot for yachting and fishing companies. Surfing is also popular on the western side of Point Loma, known as the Sunset Cliffs. The peninsula has its own public high school, along with two public middle schools and seven public elementary schools. There’s also a public charter school campus.Despite not actually being part of Old Town, Point Loma was just as integral to San Diego’s development, and is still worth a visit for those staying in Old Town or other parts of San Diego.