Los Encinos State Historic Park

The spring here ran year round, which is why Siutcanga stood on this ground for thousands of years. The name means the place of the oaks, and the Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians says more than three quarters of its citizens descend from this village. Chumash, Tongva and Tataviam people all used the site. The trade route they traveled to reach it is now Ventura Boulevard, a block south. Portolá's expedition camped at the spring in August 1769 and Juan Crespí wrote it down, counting roughly two hundred people living in two villages.

What happened next is on the nation's own website and is worth reading before you walk the grounds: in the Mexican period their ancestors were granted Rancho El Encino, and within a few years the land was gone, lost during the American period to the business dealings of a neighboring Spaniard named Vicente de la Osa. His adobe is the long low building at the center of the park, put up in 1849. The two-story limestone house behind it went up in 1872 for Eugene Garnier, a French Basque sheep rancher, and the guitar-shaped pond in front of it in 1874. Four and a half acres, free to enter, walled off from the boulevard traffic completely. Adobe interiors are shown by docent tour, so check the schedule before you count on getting inside.