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The name of this beautiful valley (Paw-wi) comes from the Diegueño and Luiseño Indians, who roamed the area before the Spaniards. In the days of the Padres, the Paguay Valley, as it was called ("meeting little valleys" or "end of the valley") was tended by the Mission Indians. In 1859, the first white person built an adobe house south of Poway Road, between Midland and Community roads, and took up ranching. An ideal cattle area, the valley drew enough settlers by 1869 to warrant a post office. The Postmaster General dubbed it Poway.
The 1880s saw a prosperous valley -- families on farms, planting orchards and vineyards, raising grain, dairying, and beekeeping. By 1887, the population of 800 had a church -- located at Community Road and Hillary Place -- a school, a hotel, stores, and the dream of a railroad, which would pass west of the present Midland Road.
With the railroad's possibility came a real estate boom; an English firm laid out a subdivision with residential areas planned around parks and elegant street names, -- Devon and Norwalk. But the railroad never came, and the valley lost its settlers. Few traces of the subdivision remain today; what does is known as "Old Poway."
In 1950 the first residential subdivision homes were built and sold as Poway Valley Homes. Poway's population began to climb, and continues to do so. Poway's hills feature some of the grandest homes in all of San Diego County.
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