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The Spanish Period
1769-1822
by Ruth Alter, Archaeologist
Background
In 1769, a small band of Catholic missionaries and their soldier escorts from Mexico reached what is now San Diego. Led by Father Junipero Serra, a Franciscan priest, their job was to establish the first of a series of missions in Alta California intended to bring Christianity to the native people. Serra selected the first mission site on a hill above the San Diego River, overlooking the Kumeyaay village of Cosoy. The soldiers shared the fortified compound, known as the Royal Presidio, with the padres for about five years. But in 1774, deciding it was in the Church's best interest to part company with the soldiers, Serra moved the mission to a new site roughly six miles upriver, near the Kumeyaay village of Nipaguay. The soldiers remained behind at the presidio. The new mission was named Mission San Diego de Alcala.
Over the years, the secular population living behind the Presidio's protective stockade grew. About 1820, with ties to Mexico about to be cut by a revolution initiated by a government far away in Mexico City, the citizens of San Diego slowly left the now crowded Presidio, moved down the hill, and founded the pueblo of San Diego.
Mission Dam
Spain granted the Church vast areas of land for the Mission's use. This tract included 58,875 acres and extended from the pueblo land boundary of San Diego inland to the El Cajon Valley, and from National City to Clairemont. The padres considered the lands lying between Poway and the Mission " a large and mountainous jungle, of no use for anything," with one notable exception - the Mission needed a dependable water source, and an opportunity to secure one lay six miles to the east, in what is now Mission Trails Regional Park.
Soon after arriving in San Diego, Serra sent scouting parties up the San Diego River to look for suitable dam and basin sites. Mission Gorge was identified as an ideal location, but ample resources, including labor, weren't available at the time. It wasn't until about 1809 that work could begin. Using Indian labor supplied by the Mission population and presumably the villages along the river, including Senyaweche, dam construction was undertaken.
While all of the California missions had some sort of water delivery system, the dam and flume constructed for the Mission San Diego de Alcala was by far the most ambitious. Built across the head of Mission Gorge, the 244-foot long, 13-foot thick, 13-foot wide dam was constructed of stone and cement on exposed bedrock, creating a permanent reservoir behind it. Water was released through gates and spillways into a 6-mile long gravity fed tile lined flume, down the gorge and Mission Valley, ending in a settling basin near the Mission. Construction was completed by 1815 and the padres had the water they needed.
In his Emigrant notes written about 1867, Judge Benjamin Hayes tells of inspecting the water system some years earlier:
"Immediately on the right bank (going downstream), a few feet above the channel commences the aqueduct by which water was drawn from this grand reservoir. It consists of a single tile about six inches at the bottom, resting upon small stones; on each side, a brick 18 inches square inclined outward, so as to make a surface of two feet of water some 12 inches deep; the bricks lined on the inside with cement, and propped on the outside by small rocks solidly cemented. The aqueduct commenced at the dam and ran three full miles through a gorge the most difficult that can be conceived - keeping on the hillsides of the right bank of the river. Sometimes it crossed gulches from 10 to 15 feet wide. In such places a stone foundation was built up high enough to keep the level. The canal in general was simply of cobblestones and a narrow tile laid in cement at the bottom. In the gulches, the rock foundation has with time fallen down or been washed away. Such has been the strength of the cement, this brick holds together across the gulch as firmly as if cast from pipe, and now and then portions of it hang to the rocky wall at the height often to 20 feet above the bed of the river..."
After the secularization of the missions in 1833, the dam and flume were not maintained. Flume tiles were viewed as choice roofing materials and were carried off to be used in the homes of pioneers. Later floods, particularly the flood of 1916, washed away most of the flume.
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