History of isla vista

The administrator of the Den estate illegally sold the land to William Welles Hollister while the Den children were minors. Alfonso Den and his siblings hired the lawyer Thomas B. The land left to the Den children was much less desirable for agriculture due to its lack of fresh water. The majority of the estate was sold, leaving only the Isla Vista mesa to be divided between two sons. The land encompassing current day Isla Vista sold by the Den children was divided into three distinct subdivisions.

They then gave the four streets closest to the bluff their names that remain today: Del Playa, Sabado Tarde, Trigo, and Pasado Wikipedia. The remaining two subdivisions of land spanned from current day Pasado to El Colegio.

This land was owned by two Santa Barbara attorneys, one of whom is the namesake of the Robertson Gymnasium. To this day, roads such as Picasso, Abrego, and El Greco, indicate this division of proprietorship in the early development of the land we now know as Isla Vista Lodise Much of the initial interest shown in these parcels of land was due to their proximity to the ocean. Until , the area of Isla Vista was a territory of the Chumash people. The Chumash were one of hundreds of tribes that inhabited California.

It is believed that the tribe had a population of roughly 10, people. The Chumash were said to have been a peaceful people and avid fishers, developing their own language and currency.

Isla Vista was later discovered and inhabited by Spanish settlers from Upon their arrival, the Spanish began to enslave the Chumash, leaving few Chumash survivors. The territory transition was probably complicated instead of immediate. While they did not locate their huts in Anisq'Oyo, they did use the tar still found on its beaches as calking for their ocean-going canoes. Another source for that. That Chumash Villages map isn't particularly useful at that size, and I'm not sure where it comes from maybe here?

We could include this photo instead , of a mural inspired by Chumash art in the park:. Through these dubious dealings, the UCSB administration remained ominously absent. With bare-minimum regulation in place and university oversight absent, IV grew at a reckless speed in the s as developers threw up shabby housing units and charged student-tenants exorbitant rates. Most developers and investors did not live in Isla Vista, and in the boom there was virtually no planning for public services or community health.

The new Isla Vista had sewage problems, no public parks or transportation, inadequate parking space, no medical services and a peculiar absence of sidewalks and streetlights. In this first decade of development in the s, IV came to resemble an urban ghetto in many respects: isolated, with a transient population, absentee-owned housing and with a police force that patrolled the territory with a heavy-hand. A series of student-led actions at UCSB and in IV roughly over the years changed the trajectory of development in Isla Vista radically— it went from one dominated by powerful elites and headed toward slumhood, to one concerned with democracy, community wellbeing and collective self-determination.

This surge of activism in IV and on campus was motivated by national as well as local concerns. In the late s and early s, America was going through a full-fledged social crisis in which many structures of authority and order appeared to be breaking down; there were massive protests against the Vietnam War, increasing violence surrounding the civil rights movement and uncontrollable urban unrest.

Young people, who were central to these movements, were simultaneously incubating a decidedly anti-authoritarian counterculture that challenged established values and lifestyles. To many, the whole edifice of American life appeared to be crumbling. The crisis was palpable in IV as well. The catastrophic Santa Barbara oil spill, rampant police misconduct and brutality and an abhorrent housing situation hit students hard.

In the face of these and other offenses of authority in IV and around the country, Isla Vistans rose up in a flurry of actions that confronted the powers-that-be and asserted their rights to democracy and self-determination.

In the fall of underrepresented black students occupied North Hall and successfully demanded the introduction of a Black Studies curriculum at UCSB, starting a wave that swept campus and town for years to come. Through the and school years students continually challenged their marginalization by the social institutions that shaped their lives—the most immediate of which were the police, the landlords and the university—through creative and dramatic direct actions.

On campus they launched massive protests outside of Cheadle Hall in defense of a popular professor, boycotted class and occupied the UCen for weeks.