San Ysidro (Californio Spanish for "St. Isidore", Spanish pronunciation: [san iˈsiðɾo]) is a district of San Diego, California, immediately north of the Mexico–United States border. It neighbors Otay Mesa West to the north, Otay Mesa to the east, and Nestor and the Tijuana River Valley to the west; together these communities form South San Diego, a practical exclave of the City of San Diego. Major thoroughfares include Beyer Boulevard and San Ysidro Boulevard.
After independence from Spain in 1822, the Mexican government started issuing land grants for ranchos. In 1829 it granted Santiago Argüello Moraga the 10,000-acre Rancho Tía Juana, which covered parts of what now are San Ysidro and Tijuana; his son Emigdio Argüello was granted the adjacent Rancho Melijo in 1833, on which they built "La Punta", an adobe house that was one of very few structures in the area until the late 1800s.
After the 1846 Mexican–American War, Mexico ceded what is now the Southwest U.S. in 1848. San Ysidro found itself on an international border. The border was marked in the mid-1860s and the first customs building was erected in 1873. The border was unfenced until one was built in 1910 from the Pacific Ocean to Otay Mountain.
San Diego was connected to the U.S. railroad network in 1885, spurring a real estate boom. In 1887, real estate firm Hart and Stern developed Tia Juana City on the site of today's Las Americas Premium Outlets, consisting of a single street with a drug store, saloon, hotel and boot shop and some scattered houses beyond. Floods washed out buildings in 1891 and 1895; Tia Juana City was not immediately rebuilt and settlers moved to higher ground.
The Little Landers colony was a community founded by William Ellsworth Smythe in 1908 with the motto, "A little land and a living surely is better than desperate struggle and wealth possibly." Each member of the community held a plot of land no bigger than they could cultivate themselves, averaging 2 acres (8,100 m2) each, in order to foster a non-hierarchical social structure. Every person had an equal voice in the affairs of the community whose business affairs was conducted by a board of directors voted in by the community. All agricultural buying and selling was pooled on a cooperative basis. Members agreed to forfeit their land should they leave the community.
The city levied a commission on the sale of land which funded public improvements such as a library, park, irrigation systems, and a clubhouse. They maintained a retail market in San Diego where harvested produce was sold. In addition to growing vegetables, the community raised and marketed ducks, rabbits, and goats.
The Little Landers community is known as one of the nation's first communes. It lasted until a major flood wiped out its farms in 1916. The George Belcher homestead is the oldest surviving building in San Ysidro.
George Smythe named the new settlement San Ysidro, the archaic spelling of Saint Isidore the Laborer's name in Spanish (San Isidro).
1922–1957: Residential community and border town
With the rise of Tijuana, Mexico as a racing, gambling, drinking and entertainment destination in the 1920s, many American employees of these establishments lived in San Ysidro and worked in Tijuana. By 1922, twenty new modest homes had been built in San Ysidro for working class residents, "Some [of whom worked for the]... Tijuana’s Lower California Jockey Club racetrack... others worked in Mexican saloons and gambling halls."
In 1924, the $12,000 San Ysidro Free Public Library opened; civic leader Frank Beyer donated the land as well as $7,000 towards the cost. The Louis Gill-designed San Ysidro Community Church opened in 1924, and the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church opened a few years later. The San Ysidro Bank and the Civic and Recreation Center opened in 1925. Beyer donated the land for the Civic Center. In 1931, the old customs facility was replaced with the existing historic landmark customs building.
After 1933, with alcohol legalized in the U.S., gambling outlawed in Mexico and fewer American visitors to Tijuana, some homes were purchased by Mexican citizens working in the U.S.
Following World War Two, there was a housing shortage in San Diego and as a result, new houses, apartment buildings and bungalow courts were built in San Ysidro.
According to the San Diego city planning department, at this point San Ysidro was "now a full- fledged city that supported the various economic, social, religious, and recreational needs of the residents and visitors."
1957–present: Part of San Diego
San Ysidro, along with the rest of South San Diego, was annexed by the city of San Diego in 1957; an attempt by residents in 1973 to reverse the decision was unsuccessful.
On July 18, 1984, James Oliver Huberty, a 41-year-old former welder from Canton, Ohio, opened fire inside a McDonald's restaurant with multiple firearms (including an Uzi), killing 21 people and injuring an additional 19 people, before he was fatally shot by a sniper from a SWAT team. The McDonald's site was razed in 1985. The site is now home to a Southwestern College satellite campus. It was the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history until the 1991 Luby's massacre in Texas, and remains the deadliest in California history.
San Ysidro is home to the fourth busiest land border crossing in the world. It is the second-busiest border crossing between two sovereign nations (after the Johor–Singapore Causeway) and the busiest border crossing in the Western Hemisphere.