Oak of the Golden Dream

The word doing the work on this plaque is authenticated. Francisco López, a foreman on Rancho San Francisco, pulled wild onions from under an oak in Placerita Canyon on March 9, 1842 and found gold on the roots. Others had found gold in California before him; López filed a petition, and the paper is what makes his the first documented strike. Some two thousand miners came up from Sonora to work the placers. Marshall reached Sutter's Mill six years later.

What the plaque says

Francisco Lopez made California's first authenticated gold discovery on March 9, 1842. While gathering wild onions near an oak tree in Placerita Canyon he found gold particles clinging to the roots of the bulbs. The San Fernando placers and nearby San Feliciano Canyon were worked by Sonoran miners using panning, sluicing and dry washing methods. Lopez's find predated James Marshall's strike at Sutter's Mill by six years. California Registered Historical Landmark No. 168. First registered March 6, 1935. Plaque placed by the State Department of Parks and Recreation in cooperation with The Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society and Platrix Chapter No. 2 E Clampus Vitus, November 15, 1992.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Oak of the Golden Dream — steps away
  Gold was found in California here in 1842, six years before Sutter's Mill, and the oak it was found under is still standing.
• Pioneer Oil Refinery — 2.8 mi
  The first commercially successful refinery in the West, built in 1876 to take the crude coming down the pipeline from Pico Canyon.
• The Cascades — 4.0 mi
  The concrete chute where the Los Angeles Aqueduct arrives, and where forty thousand people watched the Owens Valley come south in 1913.
• Mission San Fernando Rey de España — 7.1 mi
  The seventeenth Alta California mission, founded at the Tataviam village of Achoicominga, with the largest adobe building in the state standing beside it.

More markers nearby

• Lyons Station Stagecoach Stop — 2.3 mi
• Pioneer Oil Refinery — 2.8 mi
• Beale's Cut Stagecoach Pass — 3.2 mi
• The Cascades — 4.0 mi