Serra Springs

The bronze here reads Serra Springs, and every name it lists is one somebody else brought. The Sons of the American Colonists cast it in 1976; the state's own plaque is not here. This is Kuruvungna, a place where we are in the sun, and the Tongva village on it drank from these springs for thousands of years before Portola's party camped beside them in 1769. Santa Monica later piped the water. The springs still run twenty-two thousand gallons a day. Angie Behrns found the ground under trash in 1992 and built the foundation that tends it now.

What the plaque says

The National Society Sons of the American Colonists California State Society Los Angeles, John Borton Chapter Bicentennial Marking 1976 Marked this day March 20 1976, as a California Historical Spanish Colonial Landmark "In 1776 Portola encamped at the springs as part of the Rancho San Vicente-Santa Monica known as the 1. Junipero Serra Springs; 2. El Berrendo; 3. San Gregorio; 4. San Vincente Springs. This site is on the El Camino Real route, used by the Mission Fathers and discovered by the Franciscan Missionary Priests and by Father Junipero Serra, who liked it's waters known by the Indian habitation as 5. 'Wounded Deer Springs'".

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Santa Monica Pier — 3.4 mi
  Where the Mother Road runs out of continent, and where the End of the Trail sign gives the drive somewhere to finish.
• Los Encinos State Historic Park — 8.3 mi
  A spring that never stopped running, the village it fed for thousands of years, and the rancho that took the ground away.
• Campo de Cahuenga — 8.5 mi
  The treaty that ended the fighting in California was signed on this ground, and the building it was signed in is now under the boulevard.
• Bruce's Beach — 11 mi
  Willa and Charles Bruce ran a seaside resort here for Black families until the city took the land in 1924. It came back in 2022.

More markers nearby

• Old Santa Monica Forestry Station — 3.3 mi
• Harold Lloyd Estate (Greenacres) — 3.5 mi
• Site of Port Los Angeles Long Wharf — 4.1 mi
• Portolá Trail Campsite (2) — 4.8 mi