Your walk begins on a low hill above San Diego Bay, where California's story starts. In 1769, Spanish soldier-governor Gaspar de Portolá led an expedition north from Baja California and established the first permanent European settlement on the West Coast of what is now the United States, right here on this low hill above the bay. The original Presidio — a military fort — sat on the hill above you, and a small civilian pueblo grew at its base over the following decades.
After Mexico won independence from Spain in 1821, San Diego became a Mexican town, and rancho culture flourished in the surrounding valleys. American forces raised the US flag here in 1846 during the Mexican-American War, and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 transferred California to the United States. The adobe buildings around you — some original, some reconstructed — represent life in that transitional era: Spanish colonial architecture, Mexican customs, and the slow arrival of Anglo-American commerce.
Old Town remained the heart of San Diego until entrepreneur Alonzo Horton decided to build a new city closer to the waterfront in the 1860s.