Los Angeles herald., 1905-02-09
PLEA IS MADE
FOR OLD NAMES
MOVEMENT ON FOOT TO SAVE
EARLY NOMENCLATURE
Picturesque Spanish Is Becoming Al
most a Thing Of the Past on
Maps Of the state Of
California

fornia places will welcome the an
nouncement of a movement which has
been started with the idea of restor-
ing the historical names of the state.
1t is taking away much of the beauty
of California to mutilate the old
Spanish for the sake of convenience
and many have expressed their dis
approval of such course.
One Of the prominent writer's in this
cause is zoeth S. Eldredge. Speaking
on the subject in the Sunset magazine
he says:
"An effort is being made to re-estab-
lish historical names of California that
have been abandoned, or mutilated. or
otherwise mistreated. The federal
government is the offender in some in
stances and the postoffice department
is being asked to redress the wrong
done the state and restore the original
names. 1t is a movement in which all
Calfornians sympathize and in which
all can take part. The people are
awakening to the necessity of check
ing the evil, before the names, delight
full to the ear and hallowed by religi-
Gus and historical association, have
quite disappeared The work of de-
struction has been in progress a long
time and is Widespread, but it's extent
has not been realized. The historical
student, for instance, might search the
maps of the geological survey in vain
for the Arroyo de San Jose Cupertino
1t is hidden under the name of Ste
vens creek. The Arroyo de Buenos
Aires masquerades under the name of
Corral Hollow. The Arroyo de San
Francisco named by Portala, on whose
banks he camped from November 9Th
to 18th, 1859, has become the San
Francisquito creek.
Geographical Features
The list of geographical features
whose names have been changed from
the beautiful to the commonplace is
long one, but the names of towns have
suffered the most. The exigency Of
the postoffice department. has deprived
many town of the musical quality of
its name and in some cases inflicted
a still greater injury. At times this
takes the form of removing from
name it's qualifying prefix-decapitat-
ing it-so to speak. Thus San Fer
nando Grey de Espana) named for
st. Ferdinand, king of CASTLE and
Leon, becomes Fernando; Las Llagas,
named by Captain Rivera by Moncada,
in 1772, to commemorate the wounds
(stgmata) of st. Francis, has been
rechristened Llagas. At other times
the name is cut asunder; San Juan
Bautista has become San Juan, while
San Juan Capistrano appears as Cap
istrano.
again, and this is the most common
offense, names of two words are writ
ten as one, as per example, Paloalto,
Elrio, for Palo Alto, El Rio. This
mode of writing a name causes the
accent to be misplaced, the name mis-
pronounced, and, in time, entire loss
of significance. OF this there are many
instances.
But the greatest injury of all has
Buenaventura which has had it's name
changed to Ventura. To be sure, San
Buenaventura is a long name and has
the same capital letters as San Ber-
nardino also in the southern part of
California, and a careless mailing clerk
might throw a letter into the wrong
pouch. But what of that? The peo-
rle of the town love their name and
reverence its associations. 1t bore the
name for more than one hundred years,
and before the mission was established,
even before the first expedition was
organized, this name, which had been
given by ST. Francis himself to his able
and successful coadjutor, Giovanni di
Fidenza, was selected for honor.
Founding of Mission
when the expedition, ordered by the
king for the purpose of occupying and
fortifying the ports of San Diego and
Monterey, was being organized in
Lower California by Don Jose de Gal
vez, Visitador General of Spain, he sent
for Junipero Sierra. They decided to
found a mission on lne Day VI odil
Diego, one on the bay OF Monterey,
and a third at some point to be Sc
lected between the two, to be named
in honor of the Doctor Serafico,' San
Buenaventura. The site was selected
by Portala. On August 1S, 1869, the
expedition marched down the Santa
Clara river to the sea; then proceed
ing up the coast they came, on the
next day, to the first rancheria of the
Santa Barbara channel, the largest
Indian village yet seen in California,
composed of well-built huts holding
several families each, and situated on
the banks Of a beautiful stream which
here flowed into the sea.
1.-The commander called the stream
Rio de la Asuncion and the pueblo,
La Asunclon de Nuestra Sonora. 1t
seemed to him an ideal place for
R,s s.,a- .