Old Spanish Days

The tradition & historical record

Santa Barbara (Spanish: Santa Bárbara, meaning 'Saint Barbara') is a coastal city in Santa Barbara County, California, United States, of which it is also the county seat. Situated on a southward-facing section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States excepting Alaska, the city lies between the steeply rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Santa Barbara's climate is often described as Mediterranean, and the city has been dubbed "The American Riviera". As of the 2020 census, Santa Barbara had a population of 88,665. In addition to being a popular tourist and resort destination, the city has a diverse economy that includes a large service sector, education, technology, health care, finance and local government. In 2004, the service sector accounted for 35% of local employment. In 2024, the biggest employer in Santa Barbara County was government, followed by private education and healthcare, then leisure and hospitality. Together, these accounted for 50.5% of all employment. Area institutions of higher learning include the University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara City College, Westmont College, The Colleges of Law, and Antioch University Santa Barbara. ¹

Evidence of human habitation of the area begins at least 13,000 years ago. Evidence for a Paleoindian presence includes a fluted Clovis-like point found in the 1980s along the western Santa Barbara County coast, as well as the remains of Arlington Springs Man, found on Santa Rosa Island in the 1960s. At least 25,000 Chumash natives lived in the region prior to Spanish contact. Five Chumash villages flourished in the area. The present-day area of Santa Barbara City College was the village of Mispu; the site of the Los Baños pool (along west beach) was the village of Syukhtun, chief Yanonalit's large village located between Bath and Chapala streets; Amolomol was at the mouth of Mission Creek; and Swetete, above the bird refuge. ¹

The explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, sailing for the King of Spain, departed from the western coast of the Viceroyalty of New Spain (now modern Mexico) on orders from the viceroy in Mexico City and sailed up through what is now called the Santa Barbara Channel in 1542, anchoring briefly in the area. In 1602, Spanish maritime explorer Sebastián Vizcaíno gave the name "Santa Barbara" to the channel and also to one of the Channel Islands. A land expedition led by Gaspar de Portolà visited around 1769, and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespi, who accompanied the expedition, named a large native town "Laguna de la Concepción". Cabrillo's earlier name, however, is the one that has survived. The first permanent European residents were Spanish missionaries and soldiers under Felipe de Neve, who arrived in 1782 and constructed the Presidio. They were sent to both secure the Spanish claim to the region and to convert the indigenous peoples to Catholicism. Many of the Spaniards brought their families with them, and those formed the nucleus of the small town – at first just a cluster of adobes – that surrounded the Presidio of Santa Barbara. The Santa Barbara Mission was established on the Feast of Saint Barbara, December 4, 1786. It was the tenth of the California Missions to be founded by the Spanish Franciscans. It was dedicated by Padre Fermín Lasuén, who succeeded Padre Junipero Serra as the second president and founder of the California Franciscan Mission Chain. The Chumash laborers built a connection between the canyon creek and the Santa Barbara Mission water system through the use of a dam and an aqueduct. ¹

After the forced secularization of the Missions in 1833, successive Mexican Governors distributed the large land tracts formerly held by the Franciscan Order to various families in order to reward service or build alliances. These land grants to local notable families mark the beginning of the "Rancho Period" in California and Santa Barbara history. Fernando Tico was one of the first settlers who received land grants for the local area. Fernando led the Native Americans against the Argentinian pirates in the 1800s. The population remained sparse, with enormous cattle operations run by wealthy families. It was during this period that Richard Henry Dana Jr. first visited Santa Barbara and wrote about the culture and people of Santa Barbara in his 1840 book Two Years Before the Mast. Santa Barbara fell bloodlessly to a battalion of American soldiers under John C. Frémont on December 27, 1846, during the Mexican–American War, and after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 it became part of the expanding United States. ¹

Change came quickly in Santa Barbara following the American Conquest of California. The population doubled between 1850 and 1860. In 1851, land surveyor Salisbury Haley designed the street grid, famously botching the block measurements, misaligning the streets, thereby creating doglegs at certain intersections. Wood construction replaced adobe as American settlers moved in; during the Gold Rush years and following, the town became a haven for bandits and gamblers, and a dangerous and lawless place. Charismatic gambler and highwayman Jack Powers had virtual control of the town in the early 1850s, until driven out by a posse organized in San Luis Obispo. English gradually supplanted Spanish as the language of daily life, becoming the language of official record in 1870. The first newspaper, the Santa Barbara Gazette, was founded in 1855. While the Civil War had little effect on Santa Barbara, the disastrous drought of 1863 ended the Rancho Period, as most of the cattle died and ranchos were broken up and sold. Mortimer Cook, a wealthy entrepreneur, arrived in 1871 and opened the city's first bank. Cook later served two terms as mayor. Cook founded the first National Gold Bank of Santa Barbara in 1873. The building of Stearns Wharf in 1872 enhanced Santa Barbara's commercial and tourist accessibility; previously goods and visitors had to transfer from steamboats to smaller craft to row ashore. During the 1870s, writer Charles Nordhoff promoted the town as a health resort and destination for well-to-do travelers from other parts of the U.S.; many of them came, and many stayed. The luxurious Arlington Hotel dated from this period. ¹

Just before the turn of the 20th century, oil was discovered at the Summerland Oil Field, and the region along the beach east of Santa Barbara sprouted numerous oil derricks and piers for drilling offshore. This was the first offshore oil development in the world; oil drilling offshore would become a contentious practice in the Santa Barbara area, which continues to the present day. Santa Barbara housed the world's largest movie studio during the era of silent film. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Santa Barbara, California”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

Old Spanish Days is annual festival in Santa Barbara, California, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 9 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²