Mud Spring | |
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Location | Antelope Valley, Mojave Desert, Los Angeles County, California, United States |
Coordinates | 34°42′36″N118°25′04″W / 34.71000°N 118.41778°W |
Elevation | 2,871 feet (875 m) above sea level |
Mud Spring, formerly called Aquaje Lodoso (muddy watering place), is a spring and historic site in the western Antelope Valley, within northern Los Angeles County, southern California.
It is located the western Mojave Desert at an elevation of 2,871 feet (875 m), north of Lake Hughes and east of the Tehachapi Mountains. [1]
Aquaje Lodoso was an aguaje, a watering place on the Spanish and Mexican El Camino Viejo inland north–south route in colonial Alta California. It was located between Elizabeth Lake and Cow Spring water sources.
It was also a watering place on the Old Tejon Pass road between the Antelope and San Joaquin Valleys in the 1840s and early 1850s until that road was replaced by the Stockton–Los Angeles Road, a new and easier road through Fort Tejon Pass. [2]
The Butterfield Overland Mail 1st Division had a station operating at Mud Springs, on the Stockton - Los Angeles Road. In 1860, a correspondent of the Daily Alta California wrote an account of his travel by stagecoach to Los Angeles from San Francisco. He mentions that the Butterfield Overland Mail (1857-1861) had a station operating at Mud Springs in 1860. [3]
It was 14 miles (23 km) east from French John's Station, and 13 miles (21 km) north from Clayton's—Widow Smith's Station near San Francisquito Pass in the Sierra Pelona Mountains. [4]
The Tejon Pass, previously known as Portezuelo de Cortes, Portezuela de Castac, and Fort Tejon Pass is a mountain pass between the southwest end of the Tehachapi Mountains and northeastern San Emigdio Mountains, linking Southern California north to the Central Valley. Both the pass and the grade north of it to the Central Valley are commonly referred to as "the Grapevine". It has been traversed by major roads such as the El Camino Viejo, the Stockton – Los Angeles Road, the Ridge Route, U.S. Route 99, and now Interstate 5.
Neenach is an agricultural settlement in northwestern Los Angeles County, California, United States, with a population of about 800. It is facing a massive change with the proposed construction of a 23,000-home planned community to its north called Centennial.
Gorman is an unincorporated community in northwestern Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is located in Peace Valley south of the Tejon Pass, which links Southern California with the San Joaquin Valley and Northern California. Due to this location, the area has served as a historic travel stop dating back to the indigenous peoples of California. Tens of thousands of motorists travel through Gorman daily on the Golden State Freeway since the highway's completion in the mid-20th Century.
San Francisquito Canyon is a canyon created through erosion of the Sierra Pelona Mountains by the San Francisquito Creek, in Los Angeles County, Southern California.
Elizabeth Lake is a natural sag pond that lies directly on the San Andreas Fault in the northern Sierra Pelona Mountains, in northwestern Los Angeles County, southern California.
The Sierra Pelona, also known as the Sierra Pelona Ridge or the Sierra Pelona Mountains, is a mountain ridge in the Transverse Ranges in Southern California. Located in northwest Los Angeles County, the ridge is bordered on the north by the San Andreas fault and lies within and is surrounded by the Angeles National Forest.
Elizabeth Lake is a census-designated place (CDP) and unincorporated community on Elizabeth Lake (lake), in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 1,756.
The Old Santa Susana Stage Road, or Santa Susana Wagon Road, is a route taken by early travelers between the San Fernando Valley and Simi Valley near Chatsworth, California, via the Santa Susana Pass. The main route climbs through what is now the Santa Susana Pass State Historic Park, with a branch in Chatsworth Park South.
In the history of the American frontier, pioneers built overland trails throughout the 19th century, especially between 1829 and 1870, as an alternative to sea and railroad transport. These immigrants began to settle much of North America west of the Great Plains as part of the mass overland migrations of the mid-19th century. Settlers emigrating from the eastern United States did so with various motives, among them religious persecution and economic incentives, to move from their homes to destinations further west via routes such as the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails. After the end of the Mexican–American War in 1849, vast new American conquests again encouraged mass immigration. Legislation like the Donation Land Claim Act and significant events like the California Gold Rush further encouraged settlers to travel overland to the west.
The Butterfield Overland Mail in California was created by the United States Congress on March 3, 1857, and operated until June 30, 1861. Subsequently, other stage lines operated along the Butterfield Overland Mail in route in Alta California until the Southern Pacific Railroad arrived in Yuma, Arizona in 1877.
Southern Emigrant Trail, also known as the Gila Trail, the Kearny Trail, Southern Trail and the Butterfield Stage Trail, was a major land route for immigration into California from the eastern United States that followed the Santa Fe Trail to New Mexico during the California Gold Rush. Unlike the more northern routes, pioneer wagons could travel year round, mountain passes not being blocked by snows; however, it had the disadvantage of summer heat and lack of water in the desert regions through which it passed in New Mexico Territory and the Colorado Desert of California. Subsequently, it was a route of travel and commerce between the eastern United States and California. Many herds of cattle and sheep were driven along this route and it was followed by the San Antonio-San Diego Mail Line in 1857–1858 and then the Butterfield Overland Mail from 1858 to 1861.
The Stockton–Los Angeles Road, also known as the Millerton Road, Stockton–Mariposa Road, Stockton–Fort Miller Road or the Stockton–Visalia Road, was established about 1853 following the discovery of gold on the Kern River in Old Tulare County. This route between Stockton and Los Angeles followed by the Stockton–Los Angeles Road is described in "Itinerary XXI. From Fort Yuma to Benicia, California", in The Prairie Traveler: A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions by Randolph Barnes Marcy. The Itinerary was derived from the report of Lieutenant R. S. Williamson on his topographical survey party in 1853, that was in search of a railroad route through the interior of California.
El Camino Viejo a Los Ángeles, also known as El Camino Viejo and the Old Los Angeles Trail, was the oldest north-south trail in the interior of Spanish colonial Las Californias (1769–1822) and Mexican Alta California (1822–1848), present day California. It became a well established inland route, and an alternative to the coastal El Camino Real trail used since the 1770s in the period.
San Francisquito Creek, in Los Angeles County, is a tributary stream of the Santa Clara River. It drains the south facing slopes of the Sierra Pelona Mountains of the San Gabriel Mountains within the Transverse Range of California, United States.
San Francisquito Pass is a mountain pass in the Sierra Pelona Mountains, located northeast of Green Valley and Santa Clarita, in northern Los Angeles County, California.
Tejon Creek, originally in Spanish Arroyo de Tejon, is a stream in Kern County, California. Its headwaters are located on the western slopes of the Tehachapi Mountains, and it flows northwest into the southern San Joaquin Valley.
The Old Tejon Pass is a mountain pass in the Tehachapi Mountains linking Southern and Central California.
Willow Springs Canyon is a canyon cut by Willow Springs Canyon Wash. Its source is at the head of the canyon in the gap in the Portal Ridge of the Transverse Range, 0.5 miles north of Elizabeth Lake. It is cut into the slope to the northeast into the Antelope Valley, crossing the California Aqueduct. The mouth of the Canyon is 0.25 miles southwest of its confluence with Myrick Canyon Wash which is 300 feet southwest of the intersection of Munz Ranch Road with the Neenach - Fairmont Road in Los Angeles County, California, USA.
King's Station, also known as Moore's and Hollandsville, was a stagecoach station of the Butterfield Overland Mail 1st Division between 1858 and 1861 in southern California.
Widow Smith's Station, also known as Major Gordon's Station and Clayton's Station, was a stagecoach station of the Butterfield Overland Mail 1st Division from 1858 to 1861 in southern California.