Ramona Bowl, Site of the Ramona Pageant

Helen Hunt Jackson wrote Ramona in 1884 to do for the California Indian what Uncle Tom's Cabin had done for the enslaved, having already published A Century of Dishonor and been ignored. Readers took the novel as a romance. It sold enormously, filled the state with tourists hunting the heroine's grave, and changed nothing about the dispossession it described. The pageant has run on this hillside since April 1923. It is staged on the ridge where Pahsitnah stood, which the marker by the restrooms records and this one does not.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Palm Springs — 25 mi
  Cahuilla homeland, checkerboard reservation, mid-century playground, and the square mile the city burned.

More markers nearby

• Site of Indian Village of Pochea — steps away
• Soviet Transpolar Landing Site — 4.4 mi
• Hemet Maze Stone — 7.5 mi
• Saahatpa — 17 mi