Visions of California

Antonio "Chino" Varela, the only known of Las Manillas to have an extent photograph. He was caught on today's Flores Peak at the same time Juan Flores, Jesus Espinoza, and Leonardo Lopez brazenly escaped into the night by descending the rocky cliff of the peak using their riatas.   Juan Flores and “Las Manillas ”   OCHS History Hike 4/20/2024  Juan Flores was born in Mission Santa Clara near the pueblo of San Jose on January 3, 1834. He was the fourth child of José María Flores, an artilleryman in the Spanish military born at Mission San Gabriel in 1796, and María Josefa Sepúlveda, who was born in San Francisco in 1804. He spent his childhood growing up in a typical Californio family in and around the pueblo of San Jose and received a decent education. Juan’s father died around 1850, just as the American era and Gold Rush started to significantly affect the Californios’ way of life. Juan was apparently working as a cook with some of his other family members during the cen

  High in the Santa Ana Mountains are relatively flat areas with meadows with the Spanish name “potreros.” Pictured here is the Potrero los Pinos. It's quite something to consider this is a natural part of Orange County, a place far better known for its beaches and urban sprawl. From Acjachema to Pājaktse Trails Over the Santa Ana Mountains from San Juan Capistrano to Lake Elsinore, c. 1769-1845 The Santa Ana Mountains form an ever present background in the lives of the people of Orange County. This is somewhat ironic given the stark contrast between the cities and housing tracts below and the mountains’ untouched appearance above, broken only by power lines, truck roads, and radio antennas. Their natural quality serves to remind us that the rest of the county was once a more natural place. The mountains preserve the character of history before the urban sprawl. Perhaps the mountains’ ruggedness, or something in the name “Old Saddleback,” evokes the distant past. The mountains fe