The earliest known human inhabitants of the vicinity were the Oak Grove People. Some ancient
mealing stones of this prehistoric tribe were found near Saticoy in 1932 and traced back to about 3000
B.C. In about the early 15th century, the
Chumash tribe inhabited the area. They built canoes and milled the acorns. '''''Sa'aqtik'oy''''' was one of the largest settlements of the Chumash region, which extended from
Point Conception to
Santa Monica and back into the foothills as far as the
Coast Range. The natural underground springs located in the area made Saticoy a prime location for the tribe to hold their yearly meetings. In 1769, the Spanish
Portola expedition, first recorded European visitors to inland areas of California, came down the valley from the previous night's encampment near today's
Santa Paula and camped in the vicinity of Saticoy on August 13. Fray
Juan Crespi, a Franciscan missionary traveling with the expedition, noted that the party traveled about 6–7 miles that day and camped near a native village "composed of twenty houses made of grass, in a spherical form, like a half orange, with a vent at the top by which the light enters and the smoke goes out.". Saticoy lies within the vast
Rancho Santa Paula y Saticoy granted to Manuel Jimeno Casarin on April 28, 1840 by the Mexican government. In November 1861, Jefferson L. Crane settled at the site of the Chumash village, and other Americans followed soon after. Saticoy, which was then from Ventura, had a school as early as 1868. W.D.F. Richards, considered the founder of Saticoy, arrived in 1868, and bought of land. He contributed to the building up of the community and followed many experiments in farming. The Saticoy Post Office was established in 1873 by the
U.S. Post Office Department which was one of seventeen post offices operating in the county in 1890.
R. G. Surdam was listed on the
1880 census for Saticoy with the occupation of real estate agent. He is known as the founder of the towns of
Ojai and
Bardsdale and for working with
Thomas Bard to build the
Hueneme wharf. The streets and lots in the unincorporated present day "Old Town" were laid out in September 1887 on both sides of the newly opened "Southern Pacific Branch Line: Saugus to Santa Barbara." An area west of Wells Road for which another map entitled "Town of Saticoy" was filed as a competing subdivision to benefit from the new railroad. Through the 1800s and early 1900s, very little development occurred in West Saticoy but the "Old Town" area flourished as a small center of the region’s citrus, bean and other produce production. Rail passenger service stopped in 1934. did develop a small community just west of the "School Lot" as shown on the map. Saticoy School was built on the lot in 1900. The school is now called ATLAS Elementary: Academy of Technology and Leadership at Saticoy and is part of the
Ventura Unified School District. This alternative townsite, on the other side of the Brown Barranca from the railroad station, was located on the main road to San Buenaventura. That distant town, incorporated in 1866, has grown so that all of Saticoy, except for "Old Town," has been annexed into the City of Ventura. There have been many bridges across the
Santa Clara River at Saticoy. They were often washed out due to abundant rainfall and flooding. The most notable washout, however, was due to the flood wave of water caused by the collapse of the
St. Francis Dam, in northwest
Los Angeles County, which occurred two and a half minutes before midnight on March 12, 1928. The bridge was washed out again in the flood of 1969, and cars were rerouted through the riverbed east of the bridge while it was under repair.
Cabrillo Village Cabrillo Village was a camp built in the 1930s next to the Santa Clara River. A lengthy confrontation in the 1970s ensued when the growers wanted to raze the cramped, rundown homes for development. The confrontation ended in 1976, when 82 farmworker families, advised by
affordable housing advocate Rodney Fernandez, pitched in and bought their deteriorating cottages from the Saticoy Lemon Assn. It was perhaps the first time that U.S. farmworkers had purchased the camp they lived in." The first cooperative housing association in Ventura County was formed and the 154 apartments and houses in the village are owned by the cooperative. In 1989 Cabrillo Village was selected as a finalist for the
Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence. Eventually new housing tracts were built next to the community and it was annexed into the city of Ventura in 1994. The community is located between the river and the railroad tracks and is about equidistant from "Old Town" and West Saticoy. ==Geography==