Santa Ana Mountains - History

History

The mountains were named by members of Gaspar de Portolà's expedition, who camped below the mountains on July 26, 1769, the Feast Day of Saint Anne. At the time of Portola's visit, the Santa Anas were settled by three main groups of indigenous peoples, the Tongva in the north, and the Acjachemen and Payomkowishum in the south.

A handful of historic sites remain in the range today. Registered California Historical Landmarks include an Indian Village Site in Black Star Canyon, Flores Peak, the mining boomtown sites of Carbondale and Silverado, and Helena Modjeska's home.

The last wild grizzly bear in the Santa Ana Mountains was shot and killed in the mountains in 1908. The mountains are also the site of a famed Indian massacre in 1831 in Black Star Canyon.

Gray Wolf, Pronghorn, and California Condor also occurred in the range.

Read more about this topic:  Santa Ana Mountains

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    I believe that in the history of art and of thought there has always been at every living moment of culture a “will to renewal.” This is not the prerogative of the last decade only. All history is nothing but a succession of “crises”Mof rupture, repudiation and resistance.... When there is no “crisis,” there is stagnation, petrification and death. All thought, all art is aggressive.
    Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)

    The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt; it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes, on those which were best and greatest; it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.
    Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)

    History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.
    Henry Ford (1863–1947)