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Adjacent to the Mexican ranchos and settlement, across the Tijuana River on the U.S. side, another rancho by the name of San Ysdiro was established in 1873. In 1874 the first customs house was built and by 1889. The people who lived on Rancho San Ysidro depended on Tijuana's small settlement for supplies and for the next 100 years San Ysidro became more a part of Tijuana's economy and culture than that of San Diego.

San Ysidro's early urban development came from a visionary group of people who came to settle in the valley in 1909 and founded an agricultural utopian colony called "Little Landers." They were a group of people who believed that with "a little land," people could growing their own food and provide their surpluses to others within the community. They, appropriately, christened their community with the name of the patron saint of farmers, Isidro, "a virtuous farmer who had fallen asleep and had his fields plowed for him by angels."

Today San Ysidro still looms large in the dreams of many people. Immigrants "without papers" fleeing the U.S. border patrol ask breathlessly when they come across if they have arrived--if they have crossed "la linea" and entered the land of milk and honey. For long-time San Ysidro residents, who love their community and live, feel and appreciate the social relations that make up their community, their vision of San Ysidro goes beyond the limitations that some outsiders have.

Little Landers founder, William Smythe described the high ideals of brotherly love and the fullest development of human potential he held for the cooperative farming venture he founded.

Smythe's idealism was reflected in the colony's symbol: a flag bearing a white star on a field of blue, the "star of hope." The Little Landers Colony prospered largely by trading with the settlements in Tijuana, but in 1916 the Tijuana River flooded and destroyed most of the houses. Most of the Little Landers departed for other locales, but a few hardy pioneers remained. Until the 1930s most of the residents were Anglo-Americans, farmers, ranchers and individual who worked in the booming tourist industry in Tijuana.

Ermanie Celicio was born in San Ysidro in 1912 and was one of the few Mexicans who lived in the Little Landers Colony after the flood. He recalled that "Everyone was friendly. We all knew each other and everybody talked." Ermanie's father worked in various jobs, for the San Diego and Arizona Rail Road, which connected San Diego with the Imperial Valley, loading and unloading trains, and as a dealer at the Monte Carlo Club in Tijuana. She recalled that San Ysidro was where the jockey's lived and the racehorses and dogs were boarded. "Back then, San Ysidro was a jockey town. They kept horse and dogs here. The jockeys used to send their kids to school here." San Ysidro in the 1920s was home for 50 soldiers and some Chinese farmers. No one paid much attention to the border but freely crossed back and forth.

Between 1929 and 1969, many things changed in San Ysidro; but the strong sense of community remained. Lydia Armenia Beltran, who arrived in 1969, describes her reception:

"It was a very beautiful community. We found people ... who were very much involved with the community. They ...told us what was going on and they said that if we worked hard and involved ourselves . . . the community would be that much better off. ... A little girl, . . . who's now my goddaughter... came out and welcomed me and took me over to her house.... My neighbors became all my compadres.... Everybody's compadre here."