Before the being discovered by the Spanish explorers, the Oxnard Plain was inhabited by the Chumash Indians, who were once the largest cultural group among the western tribes. The Spaniards and their various successors recognized the potential of this "land of everlasting summers," and the natives were eventually driven out.
Blessed with fertile soil, it didn't take long before the area became a major agricultural center. In 1897, two ranchers invited Henry Oxnard to construct a local factory to process beet sugar. A town quickly sprang up near the factory, and almost overnight businesses and residences appeared around the town square, called the "Plaza." The City of Oxnard was incorporated in 1903, and the factory operated for 60 years, but closed in 1958 because other vegetables had replaced sugar beets as the primary crop.
Oxnard is now the largest city in Ventura County, occupying some of the richest agricultural land in the State of California. |
Brief History
