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
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“Boys forget what their country means by just reading “the land of the free” in history books. Then they get to be men, they forget even more. Liberty’s too precious a thing to be buried in books.”
—Sidney Buchman (1902–1975)
“For a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“To a surprising extent the war-lords in shining armour, the apostles of the martial virtues, tend not to die fighting when the time comes. History is full of ignominious getaways by the great and famous.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)