Point Loma overlooks the entrance to San Diego Bay within the homeland of the Kumeyaay, whose coastal settlements, trade, fishing, and land stewardship preceded European arrival by thousands of years. In September 1542 an expedition commanded by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo entered the bay while sailing north for Spain from New Spain. It was the first recorded European expedition to reach this part of the present-day United States west coast. The landing's exact location is uncertain, and the voyage initiated no permanent Spanish settlement, though later commemoration made Cabrillo a symbol of exploration.

Spanish colonization of San Diego began more than two centuries later through the mission and presidio system, bringing forced labor, religious suppression, disease, and land loss to Kumeyaay communities. Mexico gained independence in 1821, and the United States acquired California after the Mexican-American War. Point Loma's commanding elevation then attracted navigation and military infrastructure. The Old Point Loma Lighthouse began operation in 1855 near the peninsula's summit. Its Cape Cod-style keeper's dwelling and tower offered broad visibility in clear weather but often stood above the low coastal fog that obscured its beam from ships.

A lower light station replaced it in 1891, and the old building deteriorated before preservation efforts began. Federal crews restored it in the 1930s, reconstructing missing features and arranging rooms to interpret the keeper's household. The displayed Fresnel lens is historically appropriate but is not the original lens that operated there. Coastal defense grew during both world wars, leaving searchlight shelters, observation stations, gun batteries, roads, and other military remains across Point Loma. These concrete positions were purpose-built for changing weapons and surveillance systems; many are closed, altered, or preserved as partial structures.

President Woodrow Wilson established Cabrillo National Monument in 1913, initially as a very small commemorative site. A Portuguese-sponsored statue of Cabrillo by sculptor Álvaro de Brée was later transferred to the monument and installed in 1949, with the present sandstone monument setting completed afterward. Boundary changes brought lighthouse, military, coastal, and natural resources into the park. The Cabrillo statue is twentieth-century commemoration rather than a portrait from life, while the lighthouse is genuine nineteenth-century fabric substantially restored for interpretation. Neither should be mistaken for evidence fixing Cabrillo's precise landing place.

The National Park Service manages the monument within a broader federal and military landscape. Admission is charged, and visitors encounter the visitor center, overlooks, restored lighthouse, coastal-defense exhibits, trails, tidepools, and seasonal natural events under posted conditions. Conservation must address salt, wind, erosion, fragile intertidal habitat, and heavy visitation. The site's history is most useful when its celebrated ocean view connects several distinct stories: Kumeyaay sovereignty, European exploration, Spanish and American colonization, maritime safety, military defense, modern monument-making, and the difference between original structures, restored interiors, memorial art, and surviving archaeological terrain.