Some History and Background
The first European to arrive on the Baja California Peninsula was Hernán Cortés on May 3, 1535. The modern history of San Felipe would begin a few months later with the expeditions of Francisco de Ulloa – one of Cortés’s captains – who navigated the upper gulf in September 1535. The following year, Hernando de Alarcón and Domingo Castillo further explored the region and made the first detailed map of the Baja peninsula, giving San Felipe its original name – Santa Catalina.
From there the region seemed to have been forgotten and it wasn’t until Father Eusebio Kino “rediscovered” the area in 1701. Juan de Ugarte later built the first ship in Baja California, using it to explore the area and arrived in San Felipe on July 5, 1721.
Twenty-five years later, Father Ferdinand Konščak arrived and christened the bay San Felipe de Jesús. In 1766, Wenceslaus Linck was the first European to reach San Felipe by land and in 1794 the Lt. Governor of the Californias – José Joaquín de Arrillaga – began to use San Felipe as a port. During that same time period he also established a land route between San Felipe and Ensenada through Valle de la Trinidad.
It was not until 1925, during the administration of General Abelardo L. Rodríguez – the territorial governor – that San Felipe began to incorporate, with the first fishing camps being established and the government organizing the first sub-delegation and school. Octavio Vega Ruiz was appointed sub-delegate and he is credited with being responsible for much of the growth and development of San Felipe from 1926 to 1942.
The marine transport of both people and cargo from the Mexican mainland largely contributed to the integration of San Felipe as a township as the unpaved road from Mexicali could be extremely difficult and treacherous to drive, especially in summer. Some of the most often seen ships at that time in the port were José Ascolani’s Trieste and Pacita and Río Colorado, owned by Arnulfo Liera.
By the end of the 1920s, San Felipe had nearly 100 permanent inhabitants and in 1940 appeared for the first time in the federal census with 287 inhabitants.
A few years after the end of World War II, the Compañía Industrial del Golfo de Cortés, owned by José María Rodríguez Luján, bought the land from Guillermo Andrade’s estate to build an international tourist center. In 1948, work on paving the Mexicali-San Felipe highway began and was completed in 1951. About the same time, the 15-room “Hotel Augies” (later the Villa del Mar, Trucha Vagabunda and Las Palmas Inn) opened up for business and in 1959, the motel El Cortés was opened to the public.
With the road now paved and the number of tourists increasing, many new hotels were established in the 1960s including Hotel Riviera, El Pescador, Arnold’s del Mar and Arco Iris in addition to the tourist camps of Costa Azul, Las Arenas, Miramar, Playa Bonita, Playa de Laura and Rubén’s.
Electrical power would finally arrive in the port of San Felipe by 1963 and piped-in drinking water by 1967. The 1970s saw the establishment of the government building, restaurants, bars, gas stations, a small boat anchorage, airport, sea walk, main boulevard and sewage system as well as the first four-star hotel – the Playas de San Felipe, followed by the Fiesta Hotel.
La Hacienda opened in the 1980s with the Marina Resort and Spa opening in 1993.
San Felipe was now an extremely popular spring break vacation destination for residents of the Western U.S. states and northern Mexico, due to its great spring weather and activities with restaurants, nightclubs and bars lining the beach areas and visitors filling the hotels as well as camping on the beaches.
Several hotels, ranches, camp sites and RV parks in or near the town offer volleyball, tennis, pools, bathing areas and fishing. In 2005, San Felipe’s first golf course, Las Caras de Mexico, opened to the public. This oceanside golf course is located at La Ventana del Mar development.
The population of San Felipe was reported as 17,143 inhabitants in the 2020 Mexican Census and that number can double due to the presence of tourists, retired U.S. and Canadian citizens and desert racing crowds.
The Bay of San Felipe is 3 meters above sea level and at low tide, the water can recede as much as 2 km in some areas of the local coastline with one of the largest tidal bores in the world due in part to the Colorado River delta to the north. A tidal bore is a phenomenon in which the leading edge of the incoming tide forms a wave (or waves) of water that travels up a river or narrow bay reversing the direction of the river or bay’s current.
San Felipe is the seventh and newest municipality in the Mexican state of Baja California, inaugurated on 1 January 2022 and now borders the municipalities of Mexicali to the north, Ensenada to the northwest, San Quintín to the west and south, and the Gulf of California to the east. The municipality also comprises various islands and islets in the Gulf, such as Roca Consag and the Islas Encantadas, e.g., Isla Coloradito, Isla El Muerto, Isla Encantada, Isla Lobos, and Isla San Luis. The municipality covers an area of 10,808 square kilometres (4,173 sq mi).
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