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How the The Portola Expedition lost Monterey and found the San Francisco Bay instead
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Today, November 6th, is Marooned Without a Compass Day. Historical markers along lake and seashores tell many tales of lost ships and travelers. Presumably, some of them were lost because they got lost.
But one of the most interesting tales told in historical markers is that of the Portola expedition which missed Monterey entirely and ended up "discovering" the California Bay Area.
On July 14, 1769, Gaspar de Portolà and a posse of soldiers, servants and animals set off from Baja California. There goal of this expedition, the first recorded attempt to explore Alta California by land, was to establish a settlement in Monterey. Father Juan Crespí, a familiar name in California history, was part of the group.
All the way up the Pacific coast, a series of state historic landmarks note where Portolà and company camped. According to state historic landmark #394, they went on to "discover" the San Francisco Bay, but completely failed to recognize Monterey. Moving inland, they stopped their journey at "a tall tree" (El Palo Alto). The city of Palo Alto was named for that tree and has a historical marker, too, though not a state one.
The group returned south by January 1770. The expedition campgrounds are among the oldest California state historic landmarks, set up before the program had official criteria. Thus it is that many of the landmarks have neither a physical site nor a historical marker, with nothing but a beautiful view to suggest they ever passed that way.
Photo credit: Linda Gentile.
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