Wildomar Tutors

About Wildomar

The name Wildomar is actually made up from three names sandwiched together “Wil” is from William, “Do” is from Donald, and “Mar” is from Margaret. These were the Christian names of the town’s founders William Collier, Donald Graham and Margaret Collier Graham.

The town Wildomar initially blossomed, because of its location along the “California Southern Railroad” where it drew close to Lake Elsinore. In 1886 a post office, railroad depot and school were built, and the basic infrastructure for a small town was in place.

Wildomar tutors often remind their students that the ownership of the land on which the town grew originally was held by William Collier, Donald Graham and Franklin Heald. Unknown to them when this deal was struck was that the town was prone to suffering from flooding. In 1884 the first heavy floods since the railroad’s erection occurred and resulted in The California Southern Railroad bailing out, as there was substantial damage to the railroad, which they could not afford to fix. Luckily, it was bought out and rebuilt by the Santa Fe Railroad. It was after this event in 1885 that Heald was bought out by Collier and Graham and Wildomar became part of the Atchinson, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad. Heald took full interest in another parcel of land to the north west of the Corydon Road line, and Collier and Graham focused on the development of Wildomar together.

The Wildomar townsite was officially mapped in 1885, and recorded with San Diego County. This is when the name was decided upon. Margaret Collier Graham was the wife of Donald Graham and William Collier’s sister. In 1888 a Methodist-Episcopalian Church was built across from the school. Creating a religious hub within the small town and further growing the settlements numbers. A further boost came from growing the town’s borders beyond that of the original lines when Santa Rosa became enveloped into the township increasing it’s size by 1500 acres.

Soon Wildomar had it’s own newspaper “The Transcript”. It also could boast a large hotel, livery stable , blacksmith shop, a lumber yard, a park and numerous other stores. However the area through which the railroad ran, close to Lake Elsinore repeatedly continued to flood. As a result, the rail connection from Temecula to San Diego was abandoned. The growth of Wildomar began to slow down as a direct result. Matters were made worse when the rail service to Wildomar was abandoned completely in 1935.

Wildomar was resurrected in the mid eighties, and given a new lease of life when the Temecula Valley Freeway was built. Tutors in Wildomar correlate this growth to Wildomar once again becoming connected to the rest of the world. Soon interest in this underdeveloped area began to grow and the town has prospered once again.