Saahatpa

Cooswootna, Yampoochee to his own people and Juan Antonio to everyone else, led the Mountain Cahuilla, and the plaque credits him with defending settlers' property and livestock. It leaves out where that got him. His men killed a gang of American outlaws in 1851, a judge ruled the killings lawful, the Americans stayed angry regardless, and he moved his people east to Saahatpa to be away from them. Smallpox took him and most of the village in the winter of 1862-63. His grave was found in 1956, identified by Army epaulets.

What the plaque says

Chief Juan Antonio and his band of Cahuilla Indians helped white settlers in the San Bernardino area defend their property and livestock against outlaws during the 1840's and 1850's. In late 1851 Juan Antonio, his warriors and their families, settled at nearby Saahatpa. During the winter of 1862-63 a smallpox epidemic swept through Southern California killing many Native Americans, including Juan Antonio. Cahuilla tradition asserts that the U.S. government sent army blankets that were contaminated with smallpox. After this disaster, Saahatpa was abandoned.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• San Gorgonio Mountain — 15 mi
  The highest ground in Southern California, and the only summit down here that stands clear above the trees.
• March Field Air Museum — 15 mi
  A century of the same field, still working — the museum parked outside the fence of a base that has flown since 1918.
• Keller Peak Fire Lookout — 17 mi
  For ninety-eight years it watched this forest for smoke. In September 2024 a fire took it, and the steel frame is what is left.
• Original McDonald's Site — 20 mi
  The corner where two brothers invented fast food, now an unofficial museum the corporation has never blessed.

More markers nearby

• Yucaipa Adobe — 6.5 mi
• Yucaipa Rancheria — 6.5 mi
• Kimberly Crest — 10 mi
• The Zanja — 11 mi