The first part of the San Diego area settled was virtually abandoned after several years. It has been redeveloped with buildings replicating the original buildings in the area. It now is a California State Park, with commercial development for tourists surrounding it. It is now in a large mixed residential and commercial area.
Street scene. Many of the buildings are occupied by craftsmen showing the kind of activity conducted in the building originally, such as a blacksmith’s shop, tin shop, and general store in the background.
Here is the square.
This church outside the state park remains in use.
A building developed adjacent to the state park was built and is maintained by the LDS church commemorating the Mormon Battalion. In several rooms it tells the story of the U S Army recruiting Mormons then living in Iowa and other parts of the Midwest to form an all Mormon battalion to go west. The battalion was not intended to be used for any fighting by the army, and it did not do any fighting. Its purpose was to get civilians into California to bolster the U S claims to the area during a war with Mexico. It took the battalion (the lightly trained men were accompanied by wives and older children) about 6 months to make the trip to southern California. By the time they arrived the war with Mexico was over. The rest of their 1 year enlistment period was used in doing construction in the San Diego area. Money earned by the members of the battalion was used to finance the large migration of the Mormons into Utah.
The docent, a senior citizen doing mission work for the Church, demonstrated the equipment used by members of the battalion by dressing up a tourist in the guided tour with some of the items supplied by the Army – rifle, canteen, ammunition pouch, etc. We highly recommend the museum. It uses some unusual display techniques, including talking portraits such as those seen in Hogwarts in the Harry Potter movies.
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