Like every contemporary community in San Diego County, Santee's first inhabitants, dating some twelve thousand years ago, were Native American cultures, the last of which was the Kumeyaay. With the arrival of the Spaniards in 1769, the Kumeyaay were displaced from much of their lands that had extended from the Pacific Ocan to Ensenada, Mexico, from the Colorado River in Imperial Valley to Warner Springs Valley. Today, the Kumeyaay are an active San Diego community consisting of thirteen brands, or tribes, wish jurisdiction over tens of thousands of acres including the Barona reservation north of Lakeside.
From 1769 to 1833 the Santee area was dominated by the Spanish mission period. In 1845, with the advent of an independent Mexico, the missions were secularized and land grants became the process through which properties were distributed. One such grant, the El Cajon Rancho grant, was given to Dona Maria de Pedrorena as payment for a $500 debt owed to her husband. That grant contained 48,788 acres and spread over land that would become the communities of El Cajon, Lakeside, Santee, and Flynn Springs. Eventually the Pedrorena family began selling off portions of their grant and, by the last 1800's, most of what would become Santee was under the ownership of Hosmer McKoon and George Cowles.
Hosmer McKoon purchased 9,833 acres in 1885 and used his land primarily for grazing livestock. He built his home on the property and named the ranch Fanita, after his wife Fannie. McKoon died in 1895, and three years after his death, Fannie sold the ranch to E.W. Scripps, who bought the property to enhance the land he already owned: Scripps Ranch.
George Cowles was a successful businessman who made his fortune in the New York cotton business. He and his wife, Jennie, traveled extensively, and in 1877, settled on their nearly 4,000 acres, setting up two ranch sites: Woodside, where their home was located (at today's Woodside and Magnolia Avenues) and Magnolia, located about a mile further south. The community that developed around Woodside soon became known as Cowlestown.
Though mortally ill with malaria, George was incredible industrious. He succeeded in the raising of olives and raisins, becoming known as the "Raisin King of the United States." He also raised thoroughbred horses, organized the Consolidated National Bank, helped form and was vice president of the San Diego Marine Ways and Drydock Company, and while serving as director of the California Southern Railroad, was instrumental in extending the railroad into the Santee Valley. All of this was accomplished in a short ten years before his death in 1887.
So, how is it that Santee is Santee, and not Cowlestown? After George Cowles' death, his widow, Jennie, inherited the estate (worth more than $20 million in today's value) and continued to reside on the property. In 1890 she married a land surveyor-turned-land investor by the name of Milton Santee. Milton had moved from MIssouri to Los Angeles in the 1880's where, it seems, he became instantly influential, serving on the city council from 1884 to 1886. Santee moved to San Diego to participate in a scheme, along with a number of other investors, to develop Coronado as a resort community. Unsuccessful in their first efforts, the investment group purchased some 3,800 acres in Rancho Santa Maria and formed the Santa Maria Land and Water Company. Within that acreage Santee surveyed and laid out the township of Nuevo, the name of which would later be changed (at Santee's suggestion) to Ramona. He donated two lots for the creation of the Ramona town hall and that town hall remains today as a historic landmark.
A couple of years after Jennie and Milton's marriage, the couple moved from the Cowles' estate to downtown San Diego and by 1900 had relocated to Los Angeles. However, in 1891, before moving from Woodside, Jennie was given permission to operate Cowlestown's post office under the name of her new husband. In 1893 the citizens of Cowlestown voted to follow suit and, in doing so, created the township we know know as the city of Santee.
