Cuesta College is a public community college in San Luis Obispo County, California. History The first community college in the San Luis Obispo area was founded in 1916 as a San Luis Obispo High School division. It lasted until 1919 with the United States involved in World War I. Cal Poly had a junior college division from 1927 to 1932. Miramonte College of Atascadero filled the void as a private institution from 1933 to 1936. The county's second public junior college was formed in 1936 as a part of San Luis Obispo High School District but ceased operation in June 1959. On April 16, 1963, voters in SLO County agreed to form a community college district, forming the San Luis Obispo County Junior College District. In 1964, a limited evening division began at Camp San Luis Obispo, a California National Guard facility located between San Luis Obispo and Morro Bay. On October 4, 1965, the college was officially named Cuesta College. Five years later, following the approval of a $5 million bond, Cuesta broke ground on its current campus west of Camp San Luis Obispo to establish a 127-acre site including frontage property deeded to the college by the National Guard. Campus Located on State Route 1, the Cuesta campus is from the beaches of the Pacific Ocean and from San Luis Obispo. Cuesta College also has a satellite campus, 'North County Campus', in Paso Robles, which is to the northeast of the main campus near San Luis Obispo. Limited course offerings are also available at two other sites within the county operated by Cuesta College, one at Arroyo Grande High School in Arroyo Grande and the other at Nipomo High School in Nipomo. The campus features a science forum including an observatory for astronomy courses, now named Bowen Celestial Observatory. With a 14-inch telescope including a special narrow wavelength-band filter, the observatory has been used since the 1970s, occasionally open to the public for viewing of events such as visible comets and solar eclipses. In 2018, the college's San Luis Obispo campus received a $1.5 million gift from the Harold J. Miossi Charitable Trust; the donation toward Cuesta's Cultural and Performing Arts Center was the second-largest in the institution's then-55-year history. The center, featuring a 450-seat main theater as well as a 100-seat experimental theater, plus teaching facilities, was thereafter renamed as the Harold J. Miossi Cultural and Performing