Juana Briones, Pioneer Settler of Yerba Buena

The bronze gives her full name, de Miranda included, though in 1844 she separated from her husband, the Presidio soldier Apolinario Miranda, and stopped using it. It calls her born in Hispanic California and omits what the 1790 census wrote beside her parents' names: mulato, the colonial term for mixed African and European descent. Her mother had come north with Anza's families in 1776, aged five. In 1844 she also bought Rancho La Purísima Concepción, near Palo Alto, from its Native owner, José Gorgonio. Her house there was demolished in 2011.

What the plaque says

Juana Briones y Tapia de Miranda 1802 - 1889 North Beach Pioneer Juana Briones, born in Hispanic California, was a preeminent woman of her time. In the 1830s and 1840s she transformed an isolated cove in the then Mexican hamlet of Yerba Buena into her rancho. At the site of this park she raised cattle and grew vegetables for sale to ship crews. She gave sanctuary to refugees and was revered as a healer and care-giver. She is honored as a humanitarian, astute businesswoman, community builder, and devoted mother of eight children. California Registered Historical Landmark No. 1024 Plaque placed by the State Department of Parks and Recreation in cooperation with San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department, the Women's Heritage Museum, and the Bay Area Network of Latinas, October 5, 1997.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Muir Beach Overlook — 11 mi
  A cliff edge on Highway 1, and the concrete dugouts where two-man crews watched the sea after Pearl Harbor.
• Muir Woods National Monument — 11 mi
  A redwood canyon saved from a reservoir by a gift, and named for a man who had been there once.
• Earthquake Trail — 27 mi
  A short loop along the San Andreas, where a broken fence shows how far Point Reyes moved in under a minute in 1906.
• Kule Loklo — 27 mi
  A Coast Miwok village built in the 1970s to honour a people its builders were told had died out. They had not.

More markers nearby

• Original Site of Third Baptist Church — steps away
• Telegraph Hill — 0.2 mi
• Farnsworth's Green Street Lab — 0.4 mi
• Office of the California Star Newspaper — 0.5 mi