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El Centro is a city in and county seat of Imperial County, the largest city in the Imperial Valley, east anchor of the Southern California Border Region, and the core urban area and principal city of the El Centro metropolitan area which encompasses all of Imperial County. El Centro is also the largest American city to lie entirely below sea level (-39 feet). The city, located in the far southeastern corner of California, is near the major Southern California city of San Diego and the Mexican city of Mexicali. Founded in 1906, W. F. Holt and C.A. Barker purchased the land on which El Centro was eventually built for about $40 an acre and invested $100,000 in improvements. As one historian of valley life put it, "in only five months El Centro went from a barley field to a city...". It is home to retail, transportation, wholesale, and agricultural industries. There are also two international border crossings nearby for commercial and noncommercial vehicles. The city's population was 42,598 at the 2010 census, up from 37,835 in 2000. ==History== Spanish explorer Melchor Díaz was one of the first Europeans to visit the area around El Centro and Imperial Valley in 1540. The explorer Juan Bautista de Anza also explored the area in 1776 (an elementary school in El Centro now bears his name). Years later, after the Mexican-American War, the northern half of the valley was annexed by the U.S., while the southern half remained under Mexican rule. Small scale settlement in natural aquifer areas occurred in the early 19th century (the present-day site of Mexicali), but most permanent settlement (Anglo Americans on the U.S. side, Mexicans on the other side) was after 1900.〔 Originally part of San Diego County, the Imperial Valley was settled by farmers once water from the Colorado River was diverted via canals to irrigate the desert valley floor. In 1906, the land on which El Centro was later built was purchased by W. F. Holt and C.A. Barker. By 1907 Imperial County was incorporated into California and by then much of the valley was successfully irrigated.〔 Before the town began, the railroad had established a station and named the place Cabarker.〔 The name honored C.A. Barker, a friend of the landowner.〔 The first post office in El Centro opened in 1905. The City of El Centro was incorporated on April 16, 1908. By 1910, the population of the city had reached 1,610. By 1920 it was 5,646. One reason for this rapid growth was El Centro's becoming the county seat of Imperial County.〔 Population growth was slow, but accelerated in the 1930s, and again in the 1940s, despite the city being hard hit by a 7.1 earthquake in July 1940.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.census.gov/population/cencounts/ca190090.txt )〕 By the mid-1940s, El Centro had become the second largest city in the Imperial Valley, with a population of about 11,000 people. El Centro had also become the location of the Imperial Irrigation District (IID) administrative offices.〔 Agriculture has been an important industry within El Centro since the 1940s, because of its strategic location near rail lines and Highways 80 and 99 – more than 35 growers and shippers still operate in El Centro. However, by the early 1980s the two largest employment sectors in El Centro were government and wholesale/retail trade, reflecting El Centro's emerging role as a regional administrative and commercial center.〔 Imperial Valley Mall opened on the southeast side of the city in 2005. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「El Centro, California」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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