History:

Rotary Club of La Mesa began with fifteen members, Dr. Thomas Cunningham founding President. The third club sponsored by San Diego Rotary , La Mesa joined El Centro, Oceanside, and Escondido in the growing Rotary presence in Southern California.

Rotary had become an international organization with the founding of the Winnipeg Canada club in 1910. The San Diego club was formed the next year and was officially admitted as club #33 in 1912, joining other Pacific Coast clubs in San Francisco (# 2), Oakland, Seattle, and Los Angeles. There were no districts yet, the precursor of our 5340 district having been organized in 1915 as district 23 including Nevada, Arizona, California, and Hawaii. By the time the new La Mesa club was organized it had become district 2, Thomas Bridges District Governor. A district conference was held in Stockton in 1927.

Years later, in 1960, La Mesa Rotary and El Cajon jointly sponsored a new club in Santee/Lakeside, and in 1965, La Mesa member Ivan "Doc" Lake and others continued the expansion tradition by helping organize a new club in Spring Valley, and La Mesa Rotary also cooperated with other clubs in starting La Mesa Sunrise Rotary in 1986 during Keith Dindinger's year as president. Also that year, La Mesa hosted a rare joint meeting of East County clubs including El Cajon, Santee, Spring Valley, Lemon Grove, Mission Valley East, and the newly forming Sunrise club.

Traditionally, Rotary and other similar service clubs had been for men only and in 1977 RI had revoked the charter of the Duarte, Calif. Club for admitting women, but that same year several proposals were submitted at the international meeting in San Francisco to allow women to be members. None were adopted, but times were changing , and ten years later in 1987 the Supreme Court upheld a California law barring discrimination against women. The court held that a Rotary club is not just a private social club but is in fact an organization in which membership can further one's business or profession and cannot therefore deny women the same opportunity as men.

Meeting Places over the years have included the first site at La Mesa Country Club (now the location of Trinity Presbyterian Church), the Women's Club at 3rd and Lemon until 1941, then the Maher Café for a year, then the R.L.Captain Café. The Club met at the old La Mesa Community Center for a number of years, then the Bronze Room, Big Yellow House, the Women's Club again (at it's present location), and since 1997 at Continental Catering on Parkway Drive.