The Pajaro Valley (translated in english as Bird Valley) is located at the top stretch of the Central California coast, bridging south Santa Cruz County and the North Monterey County regions, just inland of the Pacific Ocean and the center of the Monterey bay. The Pajaro Valley includes the small communities of Corralitos, Freedom, La Selva Beach, Pajaro, Royal Oaks, Pajaro Dunes and the city of Watsonville.
Watsonville and the Pajaro Valley boast pristine beaches and a Mediterranean climate which is protected from the summer heat of California’s central valley by the Santa Cruz Mountains and the giant “palos colorados” (red trees), where the great Sempervirens Redwoods can live for 2000 years and reach heights of 300 feet. The valley is bathed in cool morning fog rolling in from the Pacific which creates moderate temperatures throughout the day.
The human history of the valley reaches back more than 10,000 years. Surrounded by streams teeming with steelhead trout and salmon, a bountiful sea, and the mountains where acorns, wild strawberries, deer, rabbits and birds could be found created an ideal environment where small family hunter/gatherer groups of Mutsun of the Ohlone people once lived a peaceful life.
This Eden like existence ended abruptly for the indigenous people when the first Spanish land explorers passed through the valley in 1769. Gaspar de Portola lead a party looking for sites for new Missions. Along their expedition they crossed a river where they noticed a large straw-stuffed bird and named the river, Rio del Pajaro, or River of the Bird. The Pajaro River runs right through the heart of the valley, dividing Watsonville and the community of Pajaro. The rich alluvial soil deposited by the Pajaro River combined with the mild Mediterranean climate make the Pajaro Valley an ideal agricultural location.
By the end of the 1700’s three missions had been built around the Pajaro Valley: to the south stands Mission San Carlos Borromeo del Rio Carmelo (Carmel Mission), to the east is Mission San Juan Bautista and Mission Santa Cruz just to the north.
After the California Gold Rush of 1849, and statehood in 1850, many new settlers arrived to the area. The valley’s largest city, Watsonville was incorporated on March 30, 1868, and remains the industrial and agricultural heart of the valley to this day.
The advent of the railroad brought many more immigrants from around the world. Today, the valley’s population reflects this historical diversity of Ohlone natives, Spanish-Mexican Californios, Northern and Southern Europeans, Mexican, Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, and African Americans.
