Welcome to San Diego Old Town Marketplace!

Welcome to Old Town San Diego Marketplace!

Located at the entrance of Old Town State Park. Here you will find the history and energy of the original settlement of the city of San Diego brought to life by historytellers, a free museum, historic displays, plaques and time lines. Your visit to San Diego would not be complete without a few hours spent in Old Town at California's most visited state park. We invite you to visit our Festival Marketplace and experience
The Birthplace of California!

The Story of the Historic Casa
de Aguirre & Old Convent
The reconstruction of the Casa de Aguirre conveys the history of the early American days of Old Town San Diego. It was built circa 1853 by Don Jose Aguirre as his family home . In 1869, Aguirre's family donated the home and the land to the

Catholic Church. Father Antonio Ubach used the building as his recovery until 1885 when he founded "St. Anthony's Industrial School for Indians" on the site. The Convent, Historical Landmark #323, which now stands derelict on the property, was restored and is being used as retail space, offices, and public rest rooms. This historic building will be rehabilitated and its importance to the Catholic Church and the Old Town communities detailed for all to see. Aguirre's original adobe structure fell into disrepair and was demolished in 1914. Today you can visit the historically reconstructed Casa de Aguirre located at the entrance of the Old Town State Park.

El Museo
at the Casa de Aguirre
Historic Tours of America, Inc. is the owner and operator of the Old Town Market in Old Town San Diego. In early 1994, as we began to prepare
for the rebuilding of the historic 1853 Casa de Aguirre, we needed to find the original foundations to properly place the building. The archeological dig for those foundations did indeed open the door to the past. Four years later we had unearthed not only the foundations but had recovered thousands of artifacts from the site that told the wonderful and historically important story of the people who had lived, worked and played here. The museum at the Casa de Aguirre tells their stories and relates how they had such tremendous impact on the city of San Diego and southern California from 1840 to 1870. You will enjoy this small but important part of San Diego's history. The museum can be quickly seen and yet the story it has to tell will be long remembered.
When you visit the rest of the Old Town State Park, you and your family will become fascinated with the significance this historic area hold in the history of our country.

The convent was built downtown in 1908 and moved to Old Town in 1940. The building has served as a Seminary,the first location for the University of San Diego, a home to several orders of Nuns, military housing and as a dance hall facility for the U.S.O. during WWII.
Today, located in the restored 1908 Old Convent, is San Diego by the Sea, nautically themed gift shop with a multitude of nautical antiques and historical displays depicting the history of the Convent and the WWII era in San Diego.