Otay Mesa and Tiajuana River Area

In the late 1880's both Ray Trussell and his older brother Calvin homesteaded ranch sites in the Otay area. The site of Ray's homestead was on the Otay Mesa between the Tiajuana and Otay Rivers, Cal's ranch was in Nestor, where the Otay Mesa begins to fall to sea level (shown here superimposed on a modern day map). According to Hall (1888), "The extensive Otay Mesa [is] a body of fertile agricultural lands on a high plateau between the Tia Juana and Otay Rivers... On the Otay Mesa, the settlers, for more than half a year, depend on house cisterns for domestic water, and on small catchment basins, excavated in ravines, or formed by low dams across little dry channels for their stock." It was not an easy life.