[Noozhawk’s note: Fourth in a series. Click here for the first column, click here for the second, and click here for the third.]
El Camino Real, or The Royal Highway, is identified today with historical markers along Highway 101 from San Diego to San Francisco. The Spanish highway actually evolved over time as missions were founded that changed its course.
In the Santa Bárbara Presidio District, which extended from the San Fernando Valley to San Luis Obispo, the first site to be founded was not a mission, but El Pueblo de Los Ángeles in 1781. Next came Mission San Buenaventura in March 1782 and El Presidio de Santa Bárbara in April 1782.
Four years were to pass before Mission Santa Barbara was founded in December 1786, Mission La Purísima Concepción in 1787, Mission San Fernando Rey de España in 1797, and the last mission in the Presidio district, Mission Santa Inés in 1804.
After each founding, the Royal Highway had to be rerouted. A similar evolution followed for the development of the highway in the other military districts of Alta California.
By 1804, one might say the final route of El Camino Real during the Spanish period had been established in the Santa Barbara Presidio Military District, or had it?
Historically, the highway led from El Pueblo de Los Ángeles via Mission San Gabriel Arcángel to the east and outside the Santa Barbara district, then back to the northwest to Mission San Fernando. From there, the route — still somewhat in question today — continued to Mission San Buenaventura, then along the coast to Santa Barbara, which depending on the tide could cause problems.
After the Presidio and Mission Santa Barbara, the route continued west to Refugio beach, passing by the original Ortega Rancho, formally Rancho Nuestra Señora del Refugio, up over Refugio Pass and down across the Santa Ynez River to Mission Santa Inés.
The highway then continued along the river to the northwest, until crossing it again to arrive at Mission La Purísima — until the mission in present-day Lompoc was moved across the river to its current site after the 1812 earthquake. If traveling north to Mission San Luis Obispo, the river no longer had to be crossed after Mission La Purísima was relocated.
Another question concerns how often trail deviation occurred depending on the mode of travel, given the options of horseback, wagon and mule train.
In the 1770s, Gov. Pedro Fages, the military governor of Alta California, had a mule pack train sent to Monterey from San Diego. The highway itself was graded in a way that wagons could travel up and down it for hundreds of miles without breaking down. But it was a slow means of travel.
The subject of how El Camino Real was used was broached at a 2012 symposium held at the Santa Bárbara Presidio. Leading scholars of the history of early California were invited, and most attended the symposium entitled “Presidio, Ports, Pueblos and Caminos,” with its primary goal to begin discussions of the possibility of having El Camino Real de California listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Funded by grants from the California State Office of Historic Preservation and the John & Beverly Stauffer Foundation, the symposium laid out a plan for a phased research process for determining the eligibility of the camino for World Heritage Site designation.
One of the major outcomes of the symposium was the conclusion that El Camino Real de California needed to include the sea lane along the California coast, because so much of the shipping of goods and travel took place on vessels that stopped at ports all along it. In the Santa Bárbara district that included deliveries to the presidio, but also to Cojo and Refugio bays to the west.
In short, the land version of El Camino Real was used primarily as a trunk line delivering goods and providing travelers from the ships access to the missions in the region.
For various reasons, the initial symposium study of El Camino Real de California has not advanced in recent years. However, its recommendation of breaking down the research into the four Spanish Alta California military districts still has great merit, for it could serve as a tool for the study of early California in a way that would provide a more integrated history of the era.
One of my last acts as executive director of the Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation was to create a detailed timeline of the history of the Santa Bárbara Military District. And Janet Dowling Sands recently published her book, On a Mission: The Real Story of the California Missions, which tells the story of the missions in the context of the four California military districts: San Diego, Santa Bárbara, Monterey and San Francisco.
Julianne Burton-Carvajal, who coordinated the symposium with me, compiled all the pertinent materials, many of which she personally gathered, and then had them printed in a detailed 2013 report titled “Year One Overview: El Camino Real de California Initiative.” A copy of the report is available for review in the Santa Bárbara Presidio Research Center.
Interestingly, the symposium’s keynote speaker, historian Joseph P. Sánchez, was inspired by his participation in the event.
Sánchez — superintendent of the Spanish Colonial Research Center in Albuquerque, a partnership of the National Park Service and the University of New Mexico — followed up with his own research and, in 2019, published El Camino Real de California: From Ancient Pathways to Modern Byways.
The book maintains that a first step is to authenticate the first camino established by Spanish military commander Gaspar de Portolá, then follow the evolution of a braided version of the camino over time as it found new directions to connect ports, missions, presidios and ranchos.
Sánchez brings forth various sources to begin this process by tracing back the Camino Real concept to Greco-Roman times, advancing to the road system developed during the 15th and early 16th century reign of Spain’s Queen Isabella I, and codified in the Spanish Laws of the Indies published in 1573.
Even more ancient are the prehistoric Native American trails that the Spanish followed in many instances in developing their Royal Highway. This made sense because missions were located in areas near Indian villages.
The topic of El Camino Real is pertinent for California State Parks, for many of its parks run along and through this famous byway in Santa Barbara and elsewhere in California; it is also relevant for the Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation, which manages El Presidio de Santa Bárbara State Historic Park and the Santa Inés Mission Mills State Property.
In fact, El Camino Real was redirected over Refugio Pass to connect with Mission Santa Inés on the other side of the mountain across the Santa Ynez River. Thus, these two historic parks are made to be connected with one another, a matter that will be taken up in a later section on future interpretation of these important historical places.
For some, El Camino Real has become controversial, part of the “cancel culture.” But its staying power with large sections retaining the name all up and down the California coast continues to connect the past with the present, even inspiring people such as legendary Apple co-founder Steve Jobs to mention that he was aware he was doing his pioneering computer development work along the famous El Camino Real.
As a way of encapsulating the important history of Indian peoples from prehistoric times with the European settlement that followed, perhaps someday El Camino Real de California will indeed receive UNESCO World Heritage Site recognition — similar to that of El Camino de Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain.
Santa Barbarans became inspired by the highway and its connection with the city’s Spanish past. This led to the founding of the Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation in 1963 and the efforts of a group of volunteers called the Presidio Volunteers to rebuild and interpret the presidio.
It is a fascinating and controversial story that will take a number of installments to do justice.
— Jarrell Jackman is the former executive director of the Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation. After receiving his Ph.D. in history from UC Santa Barbara, he taught for six years in Europe and Washington, D.C. In 2015, he was honored as a knight of the Royal Order of Isabel la Católica by Spain’s King Felipe VI and was named an honorary state park ranger by the California State Park Rangers Association in 2016. Click here for previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.