Chula Vista Community

About the Community of Chula Vista

Chula Vista is the second largest city in the San Diego metropolitan area, the seventh largest city in Southern California, the fourteenth largest city in the state of California, and the 76th-largest city in the United States. The population was 243,916 as of the 2010 census.

Located just 7.5 miles (12.1 km) from downtown San Diego and 7.5 miles (12.1 km) from the Mexican border in the South Bay region of the metropolitan area, the city is at the center of one of the richest economic and culturally diverse zones in the United States. Chula Vista is so named because of its scenic location between the San Diego Bay and coastal mountain foothills.

Founded in the early 19th century, fast population growth has recently been observed in the city. Located in the city is one of America’s few year-round United States Olympic Training centers and popular tourist destinations include SleepTrain Amphitheatre, the Chula Vista marina, and the Living Coast Discovery Center, formerly known as the Chula Vista Nature Center.

The citizens of Chula Vista voted to incorporate on October 17, 1911. The State approved in November.

In 1916, the Hercules Powder Company opened a 30-acre bayfront site, now known as Gunpowder point, which produced substances used to make cordite, a gun propellant used extensively by the British Armed Forces during World War I. Although the Great Depression affected Chula Vista significantly, agriculture still provided considerable income for the residents. In 1931, the lemon orchards produced $1 million in revenue and the celery fields contributed $600,000.

The relocation of Rohr Aircraft Corporation to Chula Vista in early 1941, just months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, changed Chula Vista. The land never returned to being orchard groves again. The population of post-World War II Chula Vista tripled from 5,000 residents in 1940 to more than 16,000 in 1950. After the war, many of the factory workers and thousands of servicemen stayed in the area resulting in the huge growth in population. The last of the citrus groves and produce fields disappeared as Chula Vista became one of the largest communities in San Diego County. From 1960 to 2013, the South Bay Power Plant, a 700 megawatt four boiler plant, occupied 115 acres (47 ha) of the Chula Vista waterfront.

In 1944, the state of California attempted to seize land in Chula Vista owned by Kajiro Oyama, a legal Japanese resident who was then interned in Utah. Oyama was correctly charged with putting the property in his son Fred’s name with the intent to evade the Alien Land Law because Fred was a native-born citizen. The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court as Oyama v. California where the court found that Kajiro’s equal protection rights had been violated.

In January 1986, Chula Vista annexed the unincorporated community of Montgomery, which had previously rejected annexation in 1979 and 1982. At the time of the annexation the community was virtually surrounded by its larger neighbor.Over the next few decades, Chula Vista continued to expand eastward. Plans called for a variety of housing developments such as Eastlake, Rancho del Rey and Otay Ranch neighborhoods.In 1995, the United States Olympic Committee opened an Olympic Training Center in Eastlake on donated land; it is the USOC’s first master-planned facility and is adjacent to Lower Otay Reservoir.

Camp Otay/Weber

During World War I and II The army maintained a base on what is now the corner of Main Street and Albany Avenue. It initially served as a border post during World War I, and was reestablished in December 1942. It was home to the 140th Infantry Regiment, 35th Infantry Division. The regiment conducted war games against the Camp Lockett based 10th Cavalry, and were defeated. The base was closed in February 1944, and the division went on to see combat in the European theater. All traces of the post have since been removed.

21st century

In 2003, Chula Vista had 200,000 residents and was the second largest city in San Diego County.

Chula Vista is growing at a fast pace, with major developments taking place in the Otay Valley near the U.S. Olympic Training Center and Otay Lake Reservoir. Thousands of new homes have been built in the Otay Ranch, Lomas Verdes, Rancho Del Rey, Eastlake and Otay Mesa Areas. The South Bay Expressway, a toll-road extension of state route 125, opened November 19, 2007, connecting freeways 805 and 905 with State Route 54.

On May 30, 2006 officials from Chula Vista and the San Diego Chargers met to potentially discuss building a new stadium that would serve as the home for the team. Yet, in June 2009 the Chargers removed Chula Vista as a possible location for a new stadium. In 2009, Chula Vista – along with nine other second tier metropolitan area cities such as Hialeah and Southern California’s Santa Ana – was ranked as one of the most boring cities in America by Forbes magazine; citing the large population but rare mentions of the city in national media. A current development plan in Chula Vista is to develop the bayfront.

All information about Chula Vista courtesy of Wikipedia.