Isla Vista. The mere mention of the name brings a flood of emotions, opinions and memories to a local. A lot has happened on this small area of land in a short number of years.

When you cram thousands of people into less than two square miles, you can expect a lot to happen, especially when the majority of them are young and vibrant.

Major businesses and big name bands got their start here, riots brought worldwide attention, and the parties are notorious.

But why did our leaders decide to put all this housing in one little area? How did this happen? What was there before?

Let’s get to the answers before those apartment buildings fall into the ocean.

The earliest known name for Isla Vista is ‘Anisq’oyo, which means “at the Manzanita.”

This name is confusing because the manzanita tree that is native to this region grows only in higher elevations. Perhaps there was a structure made of manzanita or some other manzanita related event that occurred in this area. For whatever reason, the name lives on today as a park in the middle of Isla Vista.

Surprisingly, one of the most densely populated areas in California today had no Chumash villages in it, most likely due to the lack of fresh water.

In 1842, Nicolas Den was awarded the 15,500-acre Dos Pueblos Land Grant that extended from today’s Goleta Slough to just east of El Capitan.

Den’s massive ranch included the Isla Vista mesa, but he never made much use of this area since he was a cattle rancher, and this area was covered by a dense oak grove that made grazing impossible.

The Den family called the area from Coal Oil Point to Campus Point the Rincon Ranch. Rincon means corner in Spanish, and this was in reference to the sharp, right angle turn on the old ranch road that still exists at the corner of Storke and El Colegio roads.

When Den died in 1862, he left half of the ranch to his wife and the other half to his 10 children.

Within a couple of years, several extreme weather events brought hard financial times to most California ranchers, including Dos Pueblos Ranch.

The Den family lawyer Charles E. Huse was tasked with finding ways to keep the Dens out of bankruptcy. He took to the job with reckless abandon, often not bothering to check with the family before he took action.

Ranch assets were sold, and eventually large chunks of Dos Pueblos Ranch real estate were being sold off to raise money.

The Rincon Ranch area was split between three of the Den siblings – Catarina Den Bell, Alfonso Den and Augusto Den.

Without a quality water source, the land was nearly worthless, despite the primo oceanfront location and the beautiful mountain views.

There were a few 20-foot wells that produced a small amount of water, maybe enough to grow some hay or beans, but that was about it.

They planted eucalyptus trees on the dividing lines of their parcels, many of which still stand. Today, the line between Alfonso and Augustus Den’s properties is often called the Eucalyptus Curtain between UCSB and Isla Vista.
 
Charles Huse found a way to make part of the Rincon Ranch temporarily profitable. In the 1870s, he leased part of it to the More brothers who proceeded to clear cut the live oak forest that grew there for sale as firewood.

They had an eager customer right next door at the Goleta Beach whaling station that needed fuel to melt down the whale blubber. More than 1,000 cords of oak wood were cut and sold without permission from the Den family, and they received none of the proceeds from the sales.

In 1890, the asphalt industry came to Goleta, and the most lucrative mine landed right in the lap of Augusto Den.

The Alcatraz Asphalt Company leased part of the land that the More brothers had clear cut, and they started pulling 60 tons of asphalt out of the ground every 24 hours.

What had long been considered the most worthless part of the Den family empire made “Gus” Den a wealthy man. Today this would be on the UCSB campus.

After the asphalt mine closed, the Dens had a treeless, waterless piece of real estate that didn’t have a lot of value.

In 1915, Alfonso Den sold a portion of his property to John and Pauline Ilharreguy from Fillmore, California. They had a grand scheme for this scenic, but seemingly worthless, piece of oceanfront property.

The Ilharreguys paid $100 in gold for 157 acres of barren windswept land on the bluff above the ocean, and went to work planning a coastal community that had a gimmick.

In 1910, the state of California produced 77 million barrels of oil. While we don’t know much about the Ilharreguys history, we can assume they knew this fact.

They surely also knew the mesa they were about to buy was right between a former asphalt mine and Coal Oil Point, that was covered with tar.

In 1923, Gus Den put his parcel (that had the asphalt mine on it) up for sale with an option to drill for oil first. After one potential buyer opted out we can assume he found no accessible oil.

The Bishop Ranch ended up buying the land to expand its already massive operation. But the fact that no oil was found there didn’t discourage the plans of the Ilharreguys.

In 1925, the Ilharreguys laid out on paper their new subdivision that they named “Isla Vista.”

Their real estate scheme was going to involve living on the scenic coast while enjoying the fortune of the oil industry.

They divided the beach front into narrow 25 foot lots, and then the rest of the subdivision had standard 50-foot-by-100-foot lots. They would drill for oil on the smaller lots, and if you owned any lot in the subdivision, you shared in the profits from an oil strike anywhere on the property.

The lots were like shares in an investment. The more lots you owned, the greater the percentage of oil profits you would receive. Everyone’s a winner, if oil is found.

Santa Barbara had just survived the massive earthquake of 1925, and the city leaders decided to rebuild itself in a uniform Spanish Colonial theme.

All new developments in the outlying areas followed their lead and the Ilharreguys thought it would be wise to choose Spanish names for their new subdivision as well. Unfortunately, they were clearly not fluent in Spanish, and the names they came up with were proof.

Isla Vista is grammatically incorrect; the premier oceanfront road Del Playa is also grammatically wrong; and the meaning behind the name Pasado is anyone’s guess. But none of it mattered, the subdivision was quickly and easily approved.
 
Their unorthodox idea of a wealth-sharing neighborhood appealed to other “insiders” who heard about it.

In October 1925, a group of Santa Barbara lawyers bought an unnamed portion of the Ilharreguy’s land. In fact, within a year, both sides of Isla Vista were sold and subdivided.

Those same Santa Barbara lawyers bought up the land just east of Isla Vista, drew up adjoining streets, and copied the idea of narrow beachfront lots.

The two roads that ran from the access road joined near the ocean making a loop that was to be the location of a park. They also chose Spanish names for all the streets, but they gave their neighborhood an English name, Ocean Terrace.

Later in 1926, another subdivision was planned to the west of Isla Vista by the Moody sisters, also of Santa Barbara. They both worked for the county, and their father was a building contractor. They followed the street pattern but left room for an oceanfront park in between the oil lots.

This neighborhood was named Orilla Del Mar, or Seashore. While all these plans looked impressive, only three roads actually existed. The rest of this was merely on paper as a real estate promotion, not an actual development.

And promote they did. The newspaper was full of great deals on real estate on the former Rincon Ranch. The movers and shakers were buying and selling, just waiting to get rich quick.

From 1920-24 about 100,000 people moved to Los Angeles, mostly due to new water availability, the motion picture industry, and multiple oil discoveries. This was the start of a decades long boom of growth.

The Santa Barbara area also experienced a frenzy of developments and the Isla Vista tracts were right in the mix with local and out-of-town investors buying and reselling lots.

Real estate promotions were nothing more than a plan on paper and a few stakes in the ground. Without potable water and the oil discovery that this promotion was built on, Isla Vista would remain worthless.

But reality didn’t stop the developers from making it sound like this was the deal of the century in their over the top advertisements.

Isla Vista was the first subdivision performed in the Goleta Valley. No plans for water, electricity, road building, or sewage were made, this subdivision was “speculative.”

In 1928, Isla Vista looked about the same as it had for decades — desolate, waterless and empty, except for a couple hardy bean farmers and their chickens and goats. Some roads had been lightly scratched into the hard soil, mainly to allow the delivery of water.

While it looked like the dream had seized up, it still existed on paper. It just needed a little oil to get things moving again.

While living next to an oil well sounds horrible to us today, it was not uncommon in Southern California at this time. Since oil played a crucial role in the Isla Vista dream, exploration was encouraged.

Throughout the 1930s, several attempts were made by different companies in the Isla Vista area. A few companies found a little oil, but not enough to pursue it any further. The lots that had sold remained undeveloped and some of the lots that didn’t sell had to be deeded to the state to pay off taxes.

A surveyor map from 1935 made Isla Vista look like a legitimate little community, with plenty of city streets laid out in a nice orderly manner with their fancy “Spanishey” names on full display.

The county never required the three subdivisions to use a common street layout, so a few of the streets didn’t quite line up right, but hey, even beautiful Santa Barbara has that problem.

An aerial photograph from 1938 revealed what Isla Vista really looked like. Just a few of the subdivision roads actually existed, mixed with a mishmash of trails, shortcuts and pastures.

And watch your step, no sewer system existed so sewage and garbage were disposed of in a variety of ineffective manners.
 
Meanwhile, despite all the investors’ struggles and the lack of modern conveniences, a few families managed to live happily on the undeveloped subdivisions.

A 1942 photograph labeled “Ocean Terrace” shows young members of the Munoz and Cuevas families enjoying the freedom wide open spaces can bring to a child. But the Eucalyptus Curtain behind them concealed a world of change that was about to come in their direction. The United States had gotten into World War II and a new Marine base was being constructed as fast as humanly possible.

In 1938, the property to the east of Isla Vista was a huge expanse of barren land looking for a purpose. The war brought that purpose.

The swift construction of a Marine base turned a treeless, waterless property into a valuable asset.

By 1943 that barren land was the site of a small city, quickly built just for the United States Marines.

More than 100 wooden buildings, including barracks, mess halls, chapels, theaters, laundry, administration and other facilities were all built on the empty mesa. But the new base next door didn’t change anything in Isla Vista, other than an unofficial horse stable a few officers bought to enjoy horseback riding in their downtime.

After the war ended, the Marine base was closed. The Bishop Ranch didn’t want the land back, so it was set to be sold on the open market.

While the Marines’ time in Goleta didn’t directly affect Isla Vista, the next occupant certainly would.

Thomas Storke and a group of his influential friends were able to persuade the government to sell the whole area to the University of California for $1. They took over the real estate and the now-abandoned buildings and made plans for a beautiful new UCSB campus that would have plenty of room to grow.

The hard-won decision to move the college from its Riviera location to Goleta was criticized by some, saying it was moving “the campus with a view, to the campus in the slough.”

While all the wheeling and dealing for the university was going on, property owners in Isla Vista kept busy trying to finally cash in on their investment.

A couple more oil companies tried again to find oil using new and improved technology to drill deeper down than ever before. While they did find minimal success, it still wasn’t worth the effort, and the oil companies lost millions of dollars.

Now it seemed the Ilharreguys’ dream of an oil-rich community was officially dead. But some good news came in 1949 when the Cachuma Dam project was approved, promising access to water in the near future.

Running water and being located next to a new university would be very good fortune for Isla Vista property owners.

With news of the university becoming official, property owners formed the Isla Vista Improvement Association and began petitioning officials to get a sewer system in place.

The first influence their new neighbor had was a positive one since UCSB was a powerful ally for getting the mesa hooked up to much-needed utilities. But the narrow streets that didn’t line up and the undersized lots laid out for the 1920s oil scheme would come back to haunt the planners.

Before Isla Vista could become a community, it needed zoning. With the university coming to the area, county officials now realized they had to deal with this ramshackle little community that had always been overlooked.

The county planning director saw the narrow streets and tiny lots, and determined low density would be best there. But the property owners saw things differently.

Remember, this was an investment community born of the desire to make a profit. The 330 acres of Isla Vista were owned by 500 individuals, most of them lived out of town and they wanted a long-awaited return on their investment.

Surprisingly, the majority of the owners who actually lived there also wanted to maximize their profit. They all seemed to agree, if they couldn’t get rich from oil, they would get rich by maximizing the value of their land.

Higher density meant higher land value, so they pushed the county for as much multiple residential zoning as possible.
After multiple meetings, a zoning map was finally finished. About half of Isla Vista was zoned multiple residential allowing four or more units each lot, the loop on “Ocean Terrace” was zoned commercial, and the rest was all zoned for one duplex per lot, including the tiny beachfront lots.

Now every property owner could build a duplex and be a landlord. At max capacity, Isla Vista could house 13,000 people in a half square mile, 43 folks per acre. More density than anywhere west of the Mississippi at that time.

Surprisingly, the county was fine with that, but they did insist the roads be widened. Five hundred property owners were persuaded to donate 10 feet of street-side property to the county and the roads were widened.

While progress was being made on paper, an actual site visit by the County Health Department in 1953 proved the community had a long way to go.

The roads were soft dirt, the majority of the housing was sub-standard; nearly all were using bottled water; and nearly half the homes had outhouses for toilets.

A majority of the residents had livestock, (more than 1,000 animals, not counting dogs and cats), and garbage was either burned, buried or fed to the animals, resulting in garbage piles all around. This would not do for the neighboring community of a big university.

But the residents of Isla Vista willingly taxed themselves and found a way to get their community in order.

Tom Storke wrote an editorial in his News-Press, praising their efforts and scolding the county for not being more helpful. Storke was surely concerned about Isla Vista getting modernized, since his new location for the university was called the “most isolated college in higher education.”

In fact, for the first few years after the campus opened in 1954, most of the students still lived in Santa Barbara.

See what happens next in Part Two of the History of Isla Vista.