Campo

History

In 1868, Silas and Luman Gaskill opened the Gaskill Brothers' Stone Store; they were among the area's first residents. Seven years later in 1875, the store became the site of one of the deadliest Old West shootouts in California, with eight killed as the gang of bandits failed to raid the store. Morena Dam was constructed between 1896 and 1912 to provide water to the San Diego area. Campo was a station on the San Diego and Arizona Railway, completed in 1919. Campo was a military town during World War II and was known as Camp Lockett. It was home to a veterans' convalescent hospital, a 300-bed Italian prisoner-of-war camp in Cameron Corners and an all African-American Buffalo Soldiers Cavalry unit which patrolled the border on horseback until 1944. The United States military continues activities nearby at La Posta Mountain Warfare Training Facility.

Geography

Nearby communities include Boulevard, Potrero, Tecate, Dulzura, Jacumba, Pine Valley, Mount Laguna, Descanso, and Jamul. According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP covers an area of 23.5 square miles (60.7 km), 99.97% of it land, and 0.03% of it water. It is southeast of San Diego. Campo has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen Csa) with hot, dry summers and cool, relatively wet winters. The diurnal temperature variation is large throughout the year, averaging , which is comparable to such high-desert settlements as Bishop or Alamosa, Colorado. Diurnal temperature variation can reach on some days, and averages in July and August. The high diurnal temperature range means that 69 mornings each year fall below freezing, though no temperature below has ever been recorded, whilst the lowest maximum recorded has been on December 14, 1967. The huge diurnal temperature range makes mornings usually cool even on sweltering summer days: the hottest minimum has been on 25 August 2026, but from 1991 to 2020 the average highest minimum was and before the August 2026 record, the hottest minimum had been a mere on July 23, 2006. Orographic influences make rainfall about fifty percent higher than in San Diego: the wettest "rain year" was from July 1992 to June 1993 with , and the driest from July 2001 to June 2002 with . The most precipitation in 24 hours has been on November 23, 1965, and the most in one month in January 1993. Snowfall is extremely rare: fell in the record cold month of January 1949, but only nine other seasons have ever had measurable snow and none have accumulated more than .

Race & ethnicity