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News 8 takes a stroll through the charming streets of Mission Hills, exploring its rich history, and seeing how much it has changed over the decades.
SAN DIEGO COUNTY, California – From the quaint artisans to beautiful bungalows to Spanish revival homes, along with breathtaking views, Mission Hills is one of San Diego’s most historic and best-preserved neighborhoods.
It’s a community that captures the charm of “Old California” that News 8 captured in the 1970s and 1980s: a small town feel that continues to this day.
When strolling through Mission Hills, it’s easy to forget that you are actually in town.
Toni Palafox is one of the owners of Mission Hills Nursery, only the third family in more than a century to run the neighborhood’s oldest business, founded in 1910 by renowned botanist Kate Sessions
“It’s humiliating,” said Palafox.
Famous as the “Mother of Balboa Park”, Sessions also helped put Mission Hills on the map.
“If you look at the pictures, there was nothing here,” added Palafox.
Sessions managed to convince John Spreckels, owner of the San Diego Electric Railway Company, to expand the trolley service to Mission Hills and connect it to the growing region.
“She was definitely a pioneer,” Palafox told New 8. “Don’t be afraid to go out and look for what she wanted.”
The story goes back even further. In 1869, steamship captain Henry Johnston bought 65 acres of land above San Diego Bay that would eventually become Mission Hills. The purchase price for those 65 acres more than a century and a half ago was just $ 16.25.
Four decades later, Johnston’s grandson parted the land and named it “Inspiration Heights,” while businessman George Marston oversaw the development of the adjacent land.
“Instead of calling it ‘Marston’, he called it ‘Mission Hills’. The proximity to the First Mission made her special, “said Mission Hills historian and resident Janet O’Dea, who literally” wrote the book “about Mission Hills with her husband Allen Hazard.
“It was a matter of timing,” she said, pointing out that when these subdivisions were created, San Diego announced it would be hosting the Panama California Exposition, which would attract builders and craftsmen from across the country to San Diego’s empty lots from Mission Hills.
“The fuse was blown and the building boom began!” O’Dea added.
The unique charm of the community lies in the fact that the development follows the natural landscape.
“So the roads in Mission Hills are all winding,” said O’Dea.
Among the standout houses: Villa Orizaba, the first house built here, and the Guymon House, which served as the Civil Defense headquarters during WWII, as well as the house where Janed Guymon Casady grew up.
Casady, who spoke to News 8 and for that profile in 1986, noted that the rise of social media, from sites like NextDoor to online meetups, has helped bring the community together for the past 35 years.
“I think the neighborhood is probably closer today than it used to be,” said Casady.
“There’s not much left to build on Mission Hills. It’s pretty well developed, otherwise I wouldn’t be doing this interview,” she laughed. “When I thought I was taking people to Mission Hills … It’s like, ‘No, keep them out!'”
For those of you here, like relative newcomer Nicole Wilson, Mission Hills feels like an idyllic place.
“You know, it’s still an urban area, but it has a real neighborhood feeling,” she said.
It’s also one of the reasons longtime resident Tom McArdle chose Mission Hills to raise his family here more than four decades ago.
“It’s still ideal at the moment,” he said. “It’s as good as it gets.”
While it seems like much of Mission Hills has stayed the same over the years, something has changed especially when it comes to businesses.
Gone are Ron Kiefer’s beloved grocery store, which was in the spotlight in the 1980s and has now been partially replaced by a yoga studio, while neighborhood facilities like the Huddle restaurant remain.
New places are popping up all the time, like the Meshuggah Shack, where you can get your espresso with an “opera” side dish.
As Mission Hills moves into the future, the mission to preserve its past is even more urgent.
“Once it’s obliterated, it’s gone, and in this case it’s literally buried,” said historian Janet O’Dea.
These include the headstones in Pioneer Park, which is still the resting place for thousands of San Diegans.
“It would be great if you could acknowledge that this wonderful park is also the burial place for the founders of our city,” said O’Dea.
Aside from the spectacular homes here, it’s the people that make this community special.
“Probably the best is the neighbors,” said McArdle. “The neighbors are all great people.”
“I hope that never changes,” O’Dea told News 8. “I think the legacy can be passed on to future generations.”
CELEBRATE THE SAN DIEGO SERIES
Celebrate San Diego was a 1986/1987 series about neighborhoods in San Diego County. CBS 8 anchor reporter Connie Healy and a team of photographers roamed the county providing detailed profiles of several cities and towns in the area. They were history lessons focused on change and progress.
Many of the longtime residents she spoke to thought about what it was like to grow up in their city and what they thought of all the changes they had seen. You really get a feel for what the character and personality of the community were in each profile – and how diverse the county really is.
Thirty-five years later, we’re sending out a team of reporters to see how things have changed or stayed the same in each of the nearly 20 neighborhoods we studied in the mid-1980s.
Connie shares her memories of working on this fantastic series below:
“I love to talk to people. People make the news, not news anchors. They simply tell how we live our lives. In the 1980s, Celebrate San Diego did just that. It painted a picture of everyday life very different from what we live today, and a city many of us would not even recognize.
Talking to people, listening to their stories is what reporters do every day. But these stories about life in San Diego 50 to 100 years ago were amazing. This city has come a long way in the past 30 years, but some of the people in these stories saw change at the speed of light. I encourage you to take some time to peek into our past, indulge in the present, and celebrate the wonderful city we all call home. “
MORE THROWBACKS FROM MISSION HILLS
RELATED: News 8 Throwback: 40 Year Challenge highlights Mission Hills then and now
MORE THEN & NOW
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=videoseries
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