Los Puertecitos

Anza named the camp, not the pass. Los Puertecitos means the little doors, and the party spent the night of December 18, 1775 somewhere out in the flats east of this monument, which is as precise as the state is willing to be. The people who walked through the gap the next morning were not soldiers on a march. Most of the 240 had been recruited in Sonora as settlers, and they became the founding population of San Francisco the following June.

What the plaque says

Los Puertecitos Juan Bautista de Anza's expedition marched through this little pass December 19, 1775, on its way to strengthen Spanish colonization in California. Many of the 240 members of the party were recruited from Mexico to be the first residents of San Francisco. They had camped the preceding night somewhere in the wide flats just east of this monument. California Registered Historical Landmark No. 635 Plaque placed by the California State Park Commission in cooperation with Cuyamaca Parlor No. 298, Native Sons of the Golden West, January 31, 1959.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Anza-Borrego Desert State Park — 12 mi
  Six hundred thousand acres of badlands, slot canyons, and palm oases, and the biggest state park in California.
• Borrego Springs — 17 mi
  A dark-sky town ringed by state park, with 130 metal beasts loose in the desert around it.
• Salton Sea — 22 mi
  California's largest lake, made by accident in 1905 and shrinking ever since.
• Bombay Beach — 26 mi
  The lowest town in America: a drowned resort turned open-air art colony, 223 feet below sea level.

More markers nearby

• San Gregorio — 11 mi
• Peg Leg Smith Monument — 16 mi
• Palm Springs — 17 mi
• Vallecito Stage Depot (Station) — 18 mi