Solvang (; Danish for "sunny field") is a city in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. It is located in the Santa Ynez Valley. The population was 6,126 at the 2020 census, up from 5,245 at the 2010 census. Solvang was founded in 1911 and incorporated as a city on May 1, 1985. Solvang has been described as "The Danish Capital of America".
Solvang's origins date back to 1804, when Mission Santa Inés was founded by the Spanish under Esteban Tápis. A small community grew up around the mission called "Santa Inés" during the Mexican period, but it was largely abandoned after the American Conquest of California. In 1911, a new settlement was founded around the mission by a group of Danish Americans who purchased of the surrounding Rancho San Carlos de Jonata, to establish a Danish community far from Midwestern winters. The community began building Danish-themed architecture in 1947, and has since become a tourist destination. The community attracts tourists from Nordic countries, and has been the subject of several Danish royal visits, most recently by Prince Henrik in 2011. A minority of residents in the 21st century are of Danish origin.
History
Beginnings
The Santa Ynez Valley, in which Solvang lies, was originally inhabited by the Chumash, identified by Father Pedro Font, chaplain of the 1776 Anza Expedition, and were described as an ingenious and industrious people who are good fishermen and hunters, with an excellent astronomical system.
As part of the expansion of the mission system established in California by Spanish missionaries, Father Estévan Tapís founded Mission Santa Inés, now located near the center of Solvang, in order to relieve overcrowding at Mission Santa Barbara and Mission La Purísima Concepción since it was located midway between the two. It also served as a gateway to the Chumash Indians living east of the Coast Range.
After the Mexican War of Independence, the Mexican Assembly passed the Secularization Laws which confiscated Mission lands, along with other property, and transferred them to the control of local ranchers, with Solvang being later founded on what became known as the Rancho San Carlos de Jonata. With secularization, Mission Santa Inés began to decline and the Chumash Indian population in the area along with it. For a time, the mission was a seminary but soon began to deteriorate; it was repaired by the Donahue family in 1884 and renovated by Fr. Alexander Buckler in 1904.
Danish settlement
In 1910, Danish-Americans created the Danish-American Colony Company in San Francisco. Later that year, suitable land was found in the Santa Ynez Valley northwest of Santa Barbara, and in 1911, they acquired and founded Solvang. The Danes had bought almost of the Rancho San Carlos de Jonata land grant, paying an average of $40 per acre.
A hotel was built close to the Mission where new arrivals could be housed, and a school opened in 1911, with 21 students.
Expansion
In 1912, when it became difficult to sell any more plots of land, developers from Solving travelled to Iowa and Nebraska to persuade Danish immigrants to buy land in the Solving. This attracted new settlers. The early settlement had a store, a bank, a lumber yard, a barbershop and a post office.
Folk high school
In 1914, Atterdag College opened, named after Valdemar IV of Denmark. The school taught Danish-speaking students in their late teens a curriculum that emphasized lectures, singing, gymnastics, folk dancing and fellowship. During World War I, enrolment dropped due to reduced Danish emigration, and a rise in nationalism. The school was sold to the Solvang Lutheran church in 1921. Atterdag College continued to be used as a folk school, community meeting hall, performing arts venue, gymnastics center, summer school, and boarding house until it was demolished in 1970, and then replace by the Solvang Lutheran Home.
Danish church
The Bethania Evangelical Lutheran Church opened in 1928, designed as a Gothic-styled, 14th century rural Danish church. Originally, the services were mainly in Danish, but are now in English.