The Guaycura people knew this land for centuries before any European mapped it. They were nomadic hunter-gatherers whose territory stretched north to what is now Loreto. In the early 1720s, Jesuit priest Jaime Bravo established a subsidiary mission post here, drawn by something rare on the arid Baja Peninsula: reliable water and farmable soil. The post became the full Mission of Santa Rosa de las Palmas in 1733, the first European settlement on this site. Across the street from today's small town plaza, the mission church still holds the statue of the Virgin of Pilar -- the centerpiece of Todos Santos's main November festival. During the Mexican-American War, the Skirmish of Todos Santos, fought near the town on March 30, 1848, earned a footnote in history as the war's last battle.

After the missions were secularized in the 19th century, Todos Santos found its economic footing in sugarcane. Eight mills operated at the height of the boom, their machinery grinding through the harvest season, the sweet smell of processing hanging over the valley. The industry depended entirely on the local freshwater spring, and when that spring failed in 1950, the mills began to close one by one. The last shut down in 1965. The town population shrank. Buildings emptied. For an entire generation, Todos Santos existed in a kind of suspended animation -- too remote to attract investment, too dry to farm, a beautiful place with no economic engine.

When tourists began arriving in the mid-1980s, they found the Hotel California. The name was irresistible, conjuring the Eagles' 1977 hit, and the hotel leaned into the association. There was just one problem: the song was never about this hotel, or any real hotel at all. In 2017, the Eagles filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against the property. The case settled in 2018, with the hotel keeping its name but abandoning its trademark application in the United States and officially denying any connection to the song or the band. The episode captured something about modern Todos Santos -- a place where myth and reality blur easily, where the story tourists want to believe can be more powerful than the facts. Today the town prospers from farming vegetables, chilies, avocados, papayas, and mangoes, as well as fishing, ranching, and a growing arts community that has attracted residents like R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck.

Success has brought its own threats. The Todos Santos aquifer -- the town's only water source -- faces over-extraction, saltwater intrusion, and invasion by arundo, a non-native grass that consumes groundwater at alarming rates. The city's water distribution system is overtaxed, reducing delivery to homes. Power arrives via a single line from a plant in La Paz, and that line runs over capacity, causing blackouts and equipment-damaging surges. A controversial Urban Development Plan has intensified fears of overdevelopment. Population growth is straining every system the town depends on. A coalition called Protect Todos Santos has formed to fight these issues through legal action and community organizing. The town that nearly vanished when its water disappeared now faces the prospect of losing it again -- this time not to geology, but to the pressures of its own popularity.