Wade s bright eyes twinkle when she talks about the past. Passionate regarding all things Santee, her words evoke images of long-dead shapers of the early community. His largest vineyard once flourished on the area that s now Gillespie Field. The Raisin King died in 1887, notes historian Wade, and three years later his widow married an attorney and real estate man named Milton Santee. According to Wade, widow Cowles lobbied hard to change the name Cowlestown to Santee, and in 1893 she got her way by a reluctant vote of the citizens.
Reluctance is something of a leitmotif in Santee.
Wade was reluctant to leave her beloved 11-acre property three years ago to accommodate the immutable path of a superhighway. You don t know what it really did to me when Caltrans took my 11 acres for that freeway 125, she says of the eminent-domain ouster. I was the last one to sign off on it. She takes her Santee roots seriously. After years of tenacious wrangling, Wade helped secure the polo barn at the former Edgemoor Farm a slot on the National Register of Historic Places.