Current Exhibitions

The Sensual Sculpture of Donal Hord
May 25, 2013 - September 20, 2013
Bottled & Kegged: San Diego's Craft Brew Culture
April 6, 2013 - January 20, 2014

Bottled & Kegged: San Diego’s Craft Brew Culture explores the
ebb and flow of beer production in the San Diego region over the years
and answers the question: Why is San Diego becoming such a nationally
renowned region for craft beer production and innovation?

Landscapes Rediscovered
September 7, 2012 - September 1, 2013

Landscapes Rediscovered features rarely seen Depression-era landscape paintings from acclaimed San Diego artists Charles Reiffel, Maurice Braun, and others that feature familiar locations throughout San Diego County like Point Loma, Mt. Cuyamaca, and Mission Hills.

Permanent Exhibitions

Place of Promise

The History Center’s permanent exhibition on San Diego history is already at its halfway mark! Witness history in the making as we develop and build this four-phase project. Now is a great time to come for a visit as phases one and two are currently open!

Phase One: Walk on San Diego

In the first completed gallery of this evolving core exhibition, visitors can literally walk on San Diego. A thirty by thirty foot map of the county extends from wall to wall across the floor. Also featured are two large 1930s murals artist Charles Reiffel, a San Diego streetcar from 1910, and various interactive components. As the rest of the exhibition is developed over the next two years, the stories of San Diego will be interpreted through images, artifacts, and oral histories from the History Center's collection.

Phase Two: Building an Early Identity

Focusing on San Diego’s first inhabitants, a kaleidoscope of Kumeyaay, Spanish, Mexican and early American settlers up to 1885, this new gallery examines the significant impact these pioneering cultures had in shaping the city’s cultural identity and physical development.

Life on Presidio Hill

Native peoples used this hill above Old Town long before the Spanish, the Mexicans and then the Americans came. A thousand years ago, the Tipai-Kumeyaay people lived in small groups on the flat area at the base of Presidio Hill.