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Show GRASSROOTS California Highways Followed by Spanish Padres By Wright A. Patterson THE VISITOR to Boston wonders at and comments on the narrow, winding, crooked streets of the business section of the city. The natives, to whom he comments, tell him those streets were the cow-paths cow-paths blazed by the cattle of the early pioneers, and the people of Boston cherish them for that reason. rea-son. Far to the west, on the shores of the Pacific, from San Diego north to the Oregon border, from the beaches of the ocean eastward through the high Sierras, Sier-ras, the San Bernardino and others of the several mountain ranges, stretch the magnificent California highways. They were not blazed by wandering cattle, but by a devoted band of Spanish Span-ish padres In their efforts to carry civilization and Christianity Christi-anity to the Indians. To those weary, disheartened, Spanish, and their following of native na-tive Indians, they were traversing El Camino Real. Today the tourist follows the same route when his car glides over the concrete marked as Highway 101. That was the first of many trails that were blazed. Along it starting at San Diego, and north to Monterey, the padres, led by Father Junipero Serra, built missions, mis-sions, from which to lead the Indian Indi-an natives from the ways of barbarism bar-barism to civilization and a Christian Chris-tian life. The tourist of today as he travels over Highway 101, passes these missions. Some of them are now but pic turesque ruins, others are still being be-ing used as religious centers. In these, the tourist may attend mass if he so desires, and enjoy something some-thing of the atmosphere of those trail blazing days, of approximately approximate-ly 100 years ago. For the continuing hlntorlo and scenic pansrama as biased by the Spanish padres, the people peo-ple of California cherish their highways, as the people of Boston Bos-ton cherish their crooked streets, because they were once the cowpatbs of pioneers. Ex-Pert Ex-Pert engineering, and vast expenditures ex-penditures have transformed the hazardous mountain passes traversed by the padres into safe highways over and through the mountain ranges, across the sands of the Colorado desert Should yon visit California, whether yon travel by train, north or south, by bus or by private pri-vate car, either of the Rolls-Royce Rolls-Royce type or the family Jalopy, you will follow the trails biased by the Franciscan padres. Where their missions were established estab-lished now are located a number of the state's cities. Los Angeles began be-gan as San Gabriel mission. It was the padres who discovered San Francisco bay, and there they established es-tablished a town that is today the city of San Francisco. The city of San Diego started as a mission. As the tourist travels up and down the state, and across its mountain ranges and deserts, he is following the El Cameno Real as it was blazed by the padres. On those trails are to be found intensely interesting in-teresting history, an abundance of adventure and romance, and beautiful beauti-ful scenic effects. Those devout Franciscans did not realize that they were laying out a great highway system to serve an alien people. Their interest other than that of civilizing the Indians, was to establish a new 'colony for their king, that of Spain, and to provide pro-vide routes of travel to and from that colony as they trudged the weary miles of ocean beaches or desert sands, through the dense chaparral and the difficult stony passes of the mountain ranges. They did not realize they were serving serv-ing as the highway engineers of a state in the American republic, but they were. To the trails blazed by the padres were added those of the fur traders, those of the gold seekers, those of the stage coaches and the emigrant wagons, many of them following those of the padres. Today all of these constitute the thousands of miles of hard surfaced highways, or the rails of the railroads that make California and its many places of historic and scenic interest inter-est so easily accessible to the travelers using such transportation as best suits their wishes. The El Camino Real of 100 years ago is Highway 101 of today. We lost the services of MacArthur but we still have the ambassador to Mexico. |