More from the mailbag: My March 24 column about the (wherever it is) explored his path through Riverside.
To refresh everyone’s memory, the Mexican soldier and a small contingent left Arizona in a quest for an overland supply route to Mission San Gabriel. This took them through what became Riverside on March 20-21, 1774.
(The expedition was forced to camp outdoors overnight because the wouldn’t open for another 179 years.)
The party reached the mission on March 22, which is when the party got started. Where were they in between? I didn’t get into that. Perhaps I should have.
“Great column. However, you omitted the De Anza trail marker in Ontario. It’s located at De Anza Park,” Paul Gomez writes. “In recognizing Riverside County you omitted a significant milestone in San Bernardino County. Oh, my.”
Oh, well.
On deadline for that column, I checked a few websites to try to understand Anza’s 1774 route, but without much success. Either the accounts and maps focus on his 1775-76 return visit in which he accompanied settlers, or they give short shrift to the IE (so what else is new?).
One recent sunny morning, I drove to De Anza Park, which is on South Euclid Avenue at Fern Avenue. And yes, on the park’s northeast corner stands a stone marker placed in 1930 by the Boy Scouts and unnamed service organizations.
The text reads: “To the honor and glory of Juan Bautista D’Anza, trailmaker, and his band of intrepid followers, who on March 21, 1774 passed near this spot on their way to San Gabriel and Monterey, the first white men to break a trail overland to California.”
I don’t know about the spelling of “D’Anza,” which seems Italian. Or if he deserves “honor and glory.” Or why these Mexicans and Spaniards were called “white.”
(I suppose if the plaque had called them “the first brown men” to do something, no one would have shown up to the dedication.)
A few blocks east of the park is De Anza Middle School. I drove there, stood on the sidewalk and took a photo of the exterior. “Home of the Cougars” is the motto. Go, Cougars!
But back to Anza.
“The theory,” says , one of our history columnists, “is he crossed the park’s approximate location en route to San Gabriel Mission.”
Blackstock adds: “Anza made a couple trips up here from Mexico and one of his favorite places to camp was at what we call Bear Gulch, home of the Sycamore Inn, in Rancho Cucamonga.”
A small statue of a bear has marked that spot since 1932. Blackstock wrote about it in 2014. He noted that the 1779 date on the plaque is wrong and that, strangely, it honors the priest who accompanied Anza, not Anza himself.
To me, that’s a little like singling out the Pips and neglecting Gladys Knight.
, Anza stopped at Bear Gulch on that 1774 expedition, the one we’re talking about, and named the place Arroyo de los Osos. He and his party also stopped there in January 1776 on their way north, the expedition in which they established San Francisco, and on the return trip that May rested in Bear Gulch a third time.
Had an inn existed at Bear Gulch, Anza would have been racking up points toward a free stay.
You can find the name De Anza on streets from Redlands to La Verne, an elementary school in San Jacinto and a few businesses. Anza, simple version, is a small town south of Palm Springs.
Then there’s Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. I like to think it’s called Anza-Borrego because the 18th century explorer married Ms. Borrego and hyphenated his last name. But no, “borrego” is Spanish for sheep, of which the state park, California’s largest, has plenty.
While out and about, you might also find the . Christina Torres of Moreno Valley sent me a photo of such a sign along a paved path around Lake Perris.
Anza might have wished that instead of needing to blaze a trail, he’d had a well-marked, flat, asphalt path to follow. And an electric bicycle to ride. Wheee!
One word
Soroptimist International of Montclair/Inland Valley handed out a passel of awards April 17. Nancy DeDiemar, a leader in Ontario with the Chaffey Community Museum of Art, the Planning Commission and the Chaffey High alumni association (and an all-around swell person), got top honors with the Prism Award.
Yours truly got the President’s Award. That was nice of them. This might be what happens after : You get a lifetime achievement award.
In introducing me, Judy Briggs said the reason I was chosen could be summed up in one word, then paused.
I half-suspected the word would be “mix-up.” (Or “plastics.”)
But — whew — it was “community.” I’ll accept that. It really does sum up a lot of my motivation. Thank you, Soroptimists. I felt seen.
brIEfly
On a recent Monday morning, and I were messaging about when to meet for lunch, settling on a day later that week. Hours later, I walked into a restaurant and took a seat. Suddenly, standing at my table was Mike. What? He and his wife were dining on the patio, saw me enter and invited me to join them. Takeaway: The Inland Empire may be sprawling, but some days it can seem like a small town.
You can bump into David Allen here Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, like davidallencolumnist on Facebook and follow @davidallen909 on Twitter.
