Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa is a Spanish mission founded September 1, 1772 by Father Junípero Serra in San Luis Obispo, California. Named after Saint Louis of Anjou, the bishop of Toulouse, the mission is the namesake of San Luis Obispo. The mission offers public tours of the church and grounds.
Bret Harte was an American short story writer and poet, best remembered for short fiction featuring miners, gamblers, and other romantic figures of the California Gold Rush. In a career spanning more than four decades, he also wrote poetry, plays, lectures, book reviews, editorials and magazine sketches. As he moved from California to the eastern U.S. and later to Europe, he incorporated new subjects and characters into his stories, but his Gold Rush tales have been those most often reprinted, adapted and admired.
Hearst Castle, known formally as La Cuesta Encantada, is a historic, palatial estate in San Simeon, California, located on the Central Coast of California. Conceived by William Randolph Hearst, the publishing tycoon, and his architect Julia Morgan, the castle was built between 1919-47. Today, Hearst Castle is a museum open to the public as a California State Park and registered as a National Historic Landmark and California Historical Landmark.
Jack Spicer was an American poet often identified with the San Francisco Renaissance. In 2009, My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer won the American Book Award for poetry. He spent most of his writing-life in San Francisco,
Luis de León, was a Spanish lyric poet, Augustinian friar, theologian and academic, active during the Spanish Golden Age.
Gustavo Adolfo Claudio Domínguez Bastida, better known as Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, was a Spanish Romanticist poet and writer, also a playwright, literary columnist, and talented in drawing. Today he is considered one of the most important figures in Spanish literature, and is considered by some as the most read writer after Miguel de Cervantes. He adopted the alias of Bécquer as his brother Valeriano Bécquer, a painter, had done earlier. He was associated with the romanticism and post-romanticism movements and wrote while realism was enjoying success in Spain. He was moderately well known during his life, but it was after his death that most of his works were published. His best known works are the Rhymes and the Legends, usually published together as Rimas y leyendas. These poems and tales are essential to the study of Spanish literature and common reading for high-school students in Spanish-speaking countries.
Dr. Luis Rafael Sánchez, a.k.a. "Wico" Sánchez is a Puerto Rican essayist, novelist, and short-story author who is widely considered one of the island's most outstanding contemporary playwrights. Possibly his best known play is La Pasión según Antígona Pérez, a tragedy based on the life of Olga Viscal Garriga.
Richard Paul "Rooster" Burleson is an American former Major League Baseball shortstop. Burleson, who played for three American League teams over 13 seasons, was a very intense ballplayer. Former Boston Red Sox teammate Bill Lee once said of Burleson, "Some guys didn't like to lose, but Rick got angry if the score was even tied."
The Luiseño or Payómkawichum are an indigenous people of California who, at the time of the first contacts with the Spanish in the 16th century, inhabited the coastal area of southern California, ranging 50 miles (80 km) from the present-day southern part of Los Angeles County to the northern part of San Diego County, and inland 30 miles (48 km). In the Luiseño language, the people call themselves Payómkawichum, meaning "People of the West." After the establishment of Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, "the Payómkawichum began to be called San Luiseños, and later, just Luiseños by Spanish missionaries due to their proximity to this San Luis Rey mission.
Francisco Javier Clavijero Echegaray, was a Mexican Jesuit teacher, scholar and historian. After the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spanish provinces (1767), he went to Italy, where he wrote a valuable work on the pre-Columbian history and civilizations of Mesoamerica and the central Mexican altiplano.
Joseph Jacinto Mora was a Uruguayan-born American cowboy, photographer, artist, cartoonist, illustrator, painter, muralist, sculptor, and historian who lived with the Hopi and wrote about his experiences in California. He has been called the "Renaissance Man of the West".
Luis Javier Rodriguez is a poet, novelist, journalist, critic, and columnist. He was the 2014 Los Angeles Poet Laureate. Rodriguez is recognized as a major figure in contemporary Chicano literature. He identified himself as a native Xicanx writer in his most recent book. His best-known work, Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A., received the Carl Sandburg Literary Award, among others. It has been the subject of controversy when it was included in school reading lists in California, Illinois, Michigan, and Texas, due to its frank depictions of gang life.
Christopher Evans, a native of Bells Corners near Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, was an American farmer and teamster turned outlaw. He was the leader of the Evans-Sontag Gang.
James Otis was a politician from San Francisco. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts to the Otis family, which is counted among the Boston Brahmin families. He moved to San Francisco, California for the 1849 California Gold Rush. He then became an importer and exporter in San Francisco. He then became a member of the Board of Supervisors in 1859 and served until 1862. Otis was then elected Mayor of San Francisco in 1873 and was sworn in on December 1, 1873. He died of diphtheria in San Francisco on October 30, 1875, while still serving his term as mayor. He was the only mayor to die in office until George Moscone's assassination in 1978.
Francesc Palou or Francisco Palóu (1723–1789) was a Spanish Franciscan missionary, administrator and historian on the Baja California Peninsula and in Alta California. Palóu made significant contributions to the Alta California and Baja California mission systems. Along with his mentor, Junípero Serra, Palóu worked to build numerous missions throughout Alta and Baja California, many structures of which still stand today. A member of the Franciscan Order, Palóu became "Presidente" of the missions in Baja California, and later of missions of Alta California. Palóu's work in the Spanish mission system spans from his early twenties to his death at the age of 66.
Francis Luis Mora was a Uruguayan-born American figural painter. Mora worked in watercolor, oils and tempera. He produced drawings in pen and ink, and graphite; and etchings and monotypes. He is known for his paintings and drawings depicting American life in the early 20th century; Spanish life and society; historical and allegorical subjects; with murals, easel painting and illustrations. He also was a popular art instructor.
Luis Alberto Urrea is a Mexican American poet, novelist, and essayist.
Pomegranate Communications is a publishing and printing company formerly based in Petaluma, California, having moved to Portland, Oregon in 2013. The company, founded by Thomas F. Burke, began by publishing works of psychedelic art from San Francisco in 1968 under the name ThoFra Distributors. It distributed posters for concerts at Avalon Ballroom and The Fillmore.
Myron Angel (1827-1911) was a historian and journalist who led efforts to found California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California. He was born in Oneonta, New York. Myron W. Angel of Milford, New York, was admitted to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on July 1, 1846, at the age of eighteen years, seven months. At the examinations that were held in June 1848, Angel was found deficient in both mathematics and French. At the urging of his brother and due to his poor grades, Angel resigned from the Academy on June 30, 1848.
Luis Grijalva is a Guatemalan-American long-distance runner. Born in Guatemala, he attended Armijo High School in Fairfield, California. He competes collegiately for Northern Arizona University and qualified for the 2020 Summer Olympics in the 5000 m with his time of 13:13.14 at the 2021 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships.
