Biohazard and Crime Scene Remediation in Guadalupe, CA

Guadalupe is a small incorporated city in northern Santa Barbara County, sitting in the heart of the fertile Santa Maria Valley along Highway 1.

The town of Guadalupe was founded in 1872, but it did not incorporate as a city until 1946.

Guadalupe's land was once part of Rancho Guadalupe, a 43,682-acre Mexican land grant awarded in 1840 by Governor Juan B. Alvarado to Diego Olivera and Teodoro Arellanes.

The city covers only about 1.4 square miles just south of the Santa Maria River, roughly five miles inland from the Pacific Ocean and about eight miles west of Santa Maria.

The 2020 census counted 8,057 people in Guadalupe, up from 7,080 in 2010.

Guadalupe has only about 2,100 households, but they average about 4.1 people per household — far larger than the typical California household.

Guadalupe was once so central to California lettuce production that it supplied about one-third of all the lettuce grown in the state.

Farms around Guadalupe still grow broccoli, cauliflower, celery and artichokes, and the city remains a processing and shipping center for Santa Maria Valley crops.

The arrival of the Southern Pacific Railroad in the late 1800s turned Guadalupe into an agricultural distribution hub that drew Swiss-Italian, Portuguese, Filipino, Mexican, Chinese and Japanese farm and railroad workers.

Just west of town stretch the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes, an 18-mile-long coastal dune system at the mouth of the Santa Maria River.