A history of El Centro,
since 1905
Postcards, papers and photographs of El Centro from public archives, woven together by decade. Neighbors fill in the gaps.
The story
from WikipediaRead it all ↗Spanish explorer Melchor Díaz was one of the first Europeans to visit the area around El Centro and Imperial Valley in 1540. The explorer Juan Bautista de Anza also explored the area in 1776 (an elementary school in El Centro now bears his name). Years later, after the Mexican–American War, the northern half of the valley was annexed by the U.S., while the southern half remained under Mexican rule. Small scale settlement in natural aquifer areas occurred in the early 19th century (the present-day site of Mexicali), but most permanent settlement (Anglo Americans on the U.S. side, Mexicans on the other side) was after 1900.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Timeline
built from the dates on the items belowFinish El Centro’s story
Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.
3 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 🔁Retake an old viewPacking lettuce in the Imperial V…, 1920: stand where they stood+15 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10El Centro, decade by decade
1990s
Then & now
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as Packing lettuce in the Imperial Valley near El Centro, Calif (1920) and it appears here side by side.
🔁 Retake this view · +15Stories next door
nearby towns’ historyFrom Wikimedia Commons (3) and the Library of Congress (3). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.