CSUCI Exhibit – Arriving at CI: Rancho Guadalasca

The exhibition transports the viewer into a world of hidden stories and unremembered residents of the former Rancho Guadalasca- A Mexican era land grant which stretched from Mugu Lagoon to Dos Vientos, and includes CSU Channel Islands. This ranch, more than thirty thousand acres in size, with Chumash, Spanish, Mexican, and American residents, serves as a microcosm of the past and present of Ventura County and the greater Central Coast of California. Residents of the Guadalasca invented tomols, searched for gold, farmed, raised livestock, quarried, fished, hosted movie stars, fought wildfires, survived storms and shipwrecks, and built railroads. Some celebrated the multicultural nature of the local communities; others celebrated exclusionary treatment of immigrants. Some residents committed crimes, including murder; others were victimized. Some residents were resilient in the face of adversity, others failed and left. The people and events of the Guadalasca reflect the past and present of CSU Channel Islands: the amazing, the good, the regretful and, sometimes, the bad.

Photographs, historical maps, contemporary art, ephemera, newspapers, oral histories, and artifacts are used to celebrate these people, events, and activities, linking the past to the present day.

Please come to campus and journey through space and time as you meet the residents of the Guadalasca, all of whom helped us Arrive at CI.

The exhibit is part of the official 150th anniversary celebration of the establishment of Ventura County.