Garage Conversion Santa Maria, California

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total Place of 22.4 square miles (58 km), of which, 22.8 square miles (59 km²) of it is land and 0.6 square miles (1.6 km) of it (2.73%) is water.

Santa Maria is situated north of the unincorporated community of Orcutt, California, and south of the Santa Maria River (which serves as the line amid Santa Barbara County and San Luis Obispo County). The valley is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and to the east by the San Rafael Mountains and the Los Padres National Forest. The city of Guadalupe, California is nearly 9 miles (14 km) to the west of Santa Maria.

Climate

Santa Maria experiences a cool Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification Csb) typical of coastal areas of California north of Point Conception. The climate is mostly sunny, refreshed by the ocean breeze. Fog is common. Snow in the mountains is seen during the winter however, in the lowest parts of the city it is not quite unknown; with the last brief flurry recorded in January 1949. The lonesome recorded earlier snowfall was in January 1882. Rainfall averages 14 inches (360 mm) annually. The record high temperature of 110 °F (43.3 °C) was observed on June 20, 2008, while the baby book low of 20 °F (−6.7 °C) was observed twice: on January 2, 1976 and December 7, 1978.

History

The Santa Maria Valley, stretching from the Santa Lucia Mountains toward the Pacific Ocean, was the homeland of the Chumash people for several thousand years. The Native Americans made their homes upon the slopes of the surrounding hills in the midst of the oaks, on the banks of the Santa Maria River among the sycamores, and along the coast. They had unique plank-built boats, called Tomol, which they used for ocean fishing.

In 1769, the Portolá Expedition passed through the Santa Maria Valley during the first Spanish house exploration in the works the coast of Las Californias Province. Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa was received just north of the valley in 1772, and Mission La Purísima Concepción was established near present-day Lompoc in 1787. Rather than wealthy soil, white settlers were attracted here by the possibility of forgive land. In 1821, after the Mexican War of Independence, the mission lands in Santa Maria Valley were made easily reached for private ownership below a Mexican land ascend called Rancho Punta de Laguna. At the terminate of the Mexican War in 1848, California was ceded to the United States.

In the late 19th century, after California gained statehood in 1850, the area’s wealthy soil attracted farmers and additional settlers. By the stop of the century, the Santa Maria River Valley had become one of the most productive agricultural areas in the state. Agriculture is nevertheless a key component of the economy for the city and the entire region.

Between 1869 and 1874, four of the valley’s settlers, Rudolph Cook, John Thornburg, Isaac Fesler (for whom Fesler Jr. High School is named), and Isaac Miller (for whom Miller Elementary School is named), built their homes close each other at the gift corners on Broadway and Main Street. The townsite was recorded in Santa Barbara in 1875. The supplementary town was named Grangerville, then untouched to Central City. It became Santa Maria upon February 18, 1885, since mail was often swine sent by mistake to Central City, Colorado. Santa Maria was selected from the read out Juan Pacifico Ontiveros had solution to his property 25 years earlier. Streets named after the four settlers now form a 6-block square centered at Broadway and Main Street, the middle of town.

Oil exploration began in 1888, leading to large-scale discoveries at the point of the 20th century. In 1902, Union Oil discovered the large Orcutt Oil Field in the Solomon Hills south of town, and a number of smaller companies afterward began pumping oil. Two years later, Union Oil had 22 wells in production. Other significant discoveries followed, including the Lompoc Oil Field in 1903 and the Cat Canyon ring in 1908. Over the next-door 80 years more large oil fields were found, and thousands of oil wells drilled and put into production. Oil move forward intensified in the 1930s, with the discovery of the Santa Maria Valley Oil Field in 1934, right underneath the southern and western parts of the city of Santa Maria, which spurred the city’s growth even further. By 1957 there were 1,775 oil wells in operation in the Santa Maria Valley, producing more than $640 million worth of oil.