Vista City Map Poster

About Vista

Vista is also home to the Vista Unified School District, which includes several award winning schools. The lands of Rancho Buena Vista and Rancho Guajome were originally inhabited by the Luiseño Indians. In 1839 they sold their land to a group of fleeing settlers who founded the town of San Francisco on an adjacent site in what is now known as Mission Valley, but soon moved south for better water supplies at present-day Escondido. The new settlement suffered from flooding problems caused by its location on top of a former lake bed (now Mission Valley). During one especially wet winter every creek flooded and with overflow flowing into San Diego Bay; early inhabitants referred to it as "Tracks" or "Trails" because it was so muddy that horse-drawn wagons could not pass through without leaving tracks behind them—hence its name: Trail Town (later shortened to just plain Trails).