Ballena is an
unincorporated community
An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...
in the Ballena Valley of
San Diego County
San Diego County (), officially the County of San Diego, is a county in the southwest corner of the U.S. state of California, north to its border with Mexico. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,298,634; it is the second-most populous ...
,
California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
.
Ballena is east of
Ramona and west of
Santa Ysabel, at the junction of
California State Route 78 and the Old Julian Highway.
History
The area of Ballena is named after the nearby
Whale Mountain in the northwestern
Cuyamaca Mountains
The Cuyamaca Mountains (Kumeyaay language, Kumeyaay: ''‘Ekwiiyemak''), locally the Cuyamacas, are a mountain range of the Peninsular Ranges in San Diego County, California. The mountain range runs roughly northwest to southeast. The Laguna Mount ...
. The
Ipai name for the mountain was ''Epank'', meaning "
whale
Whales are a widely distributed and diverse group of fully Aquatic animal, aquatic placental mammal, placental marine mammals. As an informal and Colloquialism, colloquial grouping, they correspond to large members of the infraorder Cetacea ...
," and ''ballena'' is the Spanish word for "whale."
Ballena began in 1870, as a way stop and layover point for freight wagons, which provided fresh teams of horses and mules for the wagons on the road between the gold rush camps of
Branson City,
Coleman City,
Eastwood and
Julian − and the ports of
National City and
San Diego
San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...
.
Sam Warnock opened a general store and post office there. The post office operated from July 27, 1870, to September 26, 1894, then from August 12, 1896, to August 30, 1902, when it was moved to Witch Creek.
[Frickstad, Walter N., A Century of California Post Offices 1848-1954, Philatelic Research Society, Oakland, CA. 1955, pp. 147-158]
References
Unincorporated communities in San Diego County, California
Populated places established in 1870
1870 establishments in California
Unincorporated communities in California
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