San Juan Bautista Set Up City of San Francisco

By Judith Kahn

People who go to Mountain Lake Park often stumble upon a little-known oddity, a rock in the middle of a small field at the lake's edge that has a plaque mounted on it. The plaque is designated to Juan Bautista de Anza, the Spanish explorer who camped at this site on March 27, 1776.

Many people have heard of Cortez, Fremont, Lewis and Clark and others in regards to the development of the Pacific Coast, but many are not familiar with the explorer who camped out in the Richmond District.

Bautista de Anza was the first European in 1774 to establish an overland road from Sonora, Mexico through present day Arizona to the Pacific Coast of California. It also connected with San Gabriel and Monterey. In 1775, he successfully led a colonizing expedition of 200 people to establish a presidio, or military post, in what was known as San Francisco.

In his book "Outpost of Empire," author Herbert Bolton refers to Bautista de Anza "as a man of heroic qualities, tough as oak, and silent as the desert from which he sprang."

Bautista de Anza had proven himself as a skillful soldier by the time he was a young man. He had grown up on the Sonora frontier with his Basque family and was very familiar with the territory. By the time he was 25 year of age, he was in command of the presidio at Tubac, which was located south of Tucson, Arizona. Bautista de Anza had become acquainted with the smell of gunpowder and the chill of the war hoop before the age of four.

Both his father and grandfather fought the Apaches on the Sonora frontier and were killed by the Indians when he was four years old. After his father was killed, he carried on the ancestral task of guarding the Sonora frontier.

The new world Spanish explorers were anxious to secure an overland route to the Pacific Coast. Discovery of such a land route from Sonora to California would make it possible for colonist's stock and supplies to go directly from their place of origin without gulf or ocean voyage.

In 1774, Spain felt threatened by the encroachments of the Russians and the British on the Pacific Coast. The idea of a land route to California came to Bautista de Anza through tales brought to him by Indians. The Yumas, who lived on the Colorado River, heard of white men traveling westward going up and down the coast.

In 1774, at age 38, Bautista de Anza set forth on an expedition that other Spanish explorers had tried and failed to accomplish for more than two centuries. He was accompanied by Francisco Garces, a missionary who lived 30 miles from Tubac. Garces had visited the Pimas on the Gila River, followed the old trail to the Yuma junction, and crossed the Colorado River near its mouth. He was an invaluable asset to the expedition.

The expedition also included three padres, 20 soldiers, 11 servants, 35 mules, 65 cattle and 140 horses. The explorers took a southern route along the Rio Altar, then paralleled the modern-day Mexico/California border and crossed the Colorado at its confluence with the Gila River near the home of the Yuma tribe, with which he established good relations.

Bautista de Anza reached Mission San Gabriel (which is located on the eastern edge of present day Los Angeles) on March 22, 1774, 74 days after leaving Tubac. It was a phenomenal feat in its day. Bautista de Anza was now authorized to colonize the San Francisco Bay.

A second expedition headed for the Bay Area left Tubac on Oct 23,1775, with 245 people, 340 horses, 165 pack mules and 302 heads of cattle. Father Pedro was selected to accompany this expedition because of his expertise with navigation. The diary Font kept remains one of the great historical documents of its time, according to Bolton.

In preparation for this mission Bautista de Anza made shrewd decisions, which greatly contributed to his success of leading a colony overland to the Bay Area with the loss of only one life. To colonize the north of California, he chose people from Sonora who were in the direst poverty and misery.

Bautista de Anza correctly thought these people would be glad to get a new start in sunny California. Since the San Francisco colony was to be a military one, Bautista de Anza asked for five soldiers to serve as sergeants and corporals. Recruits were to be rewarded commodities versus cash since they had a tendency to gamble.

"To pay in cash will serve no purpose except to afford them more opportunity for prodigality and gambling," Bautista de Anza reportedly said. He also chose 10 soldiers from his own presidio to accompany him, those who were with him during his first expedition. He knew their grit and was confident of their loyalty.

Bautista de Anza also recognized the importance of bringing gifts for the Indians - tobacco and blue, red, green and yellow glass beads. In order to make the 1,500-mile journey good mounts were necessary.

The group headed north along the Santa Cruz River. It took a month for the expedition to arrive at the Colorado River. After crossing the Colorado, the expedition broke in into three separate groups so everyone could drink from the slow-filling desert water holes.

After arriving at Yuma Wells on Dec. 11, the expedition followed the same route to the San Gabriel Mission that the first expedition had taken. After managing to survive a freak desert snowstorm, the expedition headed up to Coyote Camp, going through the San Carlos Pass on Dec. 26.

Bautista de Anza had succeeded once again in leading an enormous expedition safely to its destination through miles of desert wilderness. On Feb. 17, the expedition resumed its march north, traveling the El Camino Real to Monterey. While the colonists remained there, Bautista de Anza, Font and a squad of soldiers spent the following month exploring the San Francisco Bay Area.

Before departing, Bautista de Anza designated the future site of both the San Francisco Presidio and Mission Dolores. On April 13, 1776, Bautista de Anza left Monterey and returned to Tubac. On June 17, the colonists left Monterey to establish the city of San Francisco.

Upon his return to Sonora in 1776 , Juan Bautista de Anza was named the governor of New Mexico. On Dec. 19, 1788, he was buried in Airside Sonora Mexico. In 1963, he was disinterred and reburied in a marble mausoleum with the participation of delegations from the University of California.

In 1990, the U.S. Congress created the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail, comprising the overland route of the colonizing expedition from Tubac, Arizona to San Francisco.