Pala is a small, mostly Native American, community and CDP located in the Pala Indian Reservation, located within San Diego County, California. For centuries a traditional gathering place of native peoples, it was selected in the early 19th century by Spanish Franciscan

missionaries A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...

as the site of a mission to indoctrinate the Native Americans. The community is north of Escondido in the San Diego-Carlsbad metro area. In the

National Geographic Names Database The Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) is a database of name and locative information about more than two million physical and cultural features throughout the United States and its territories, Antarctica, and the associated states of ...

, it is officially catalogued as feature number 1661174. The community is in ZIP Code 92059, and inside area code 760. The community name may be derived from the Native American

Cupeño The Cupeño (or Kuupangaxwichem) are a Native American tribe of Southern California. They traditionally lived about inland and north of the modern day Mexico–United States border in the Peninsular Range of Southern California. Today their ...

or Luiseño language term ''pal'', meaning "water." Another possible origin of the name is the Spanish word ''pala'', which means "shovel." The community is in the Pacific time zone. Pala is at an altitude of 404 feet, located at (latitude 33.365N, longitude 117.075W).

Mineral resources

After United States annexation of California following its victory in the Mexican–American War, Pala became known for its mineral resources, including gold and tourmaline. Numerous gem mines were established in 1890s, of which more than twenty are listed in the Mindat database.Pala District
at

Mindat.org Mindat.org is a non-commercial online database, claiming to be the largest mineral database and mineralogy, mineralogical reference website on the Internet. It is used by professional mineralogists, geologists, and amateur mineral collecting, mi ...

Gem mines in the Pala District still produce tourmaline, with the pink variety as the regional specialty. China's

Dowager Empress Empress dowager (also dowager empress or empress mother) () is the English language translation of the title given to the mother or widow of a Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese emperor in the Chinese cultural sphere. The title was also g ...

Cixi of Qing Dynasty highly prized the pink tourmaline mined in Pala. Under her influence, China's demand for this gem created a boom in the California tourmaline industry after 1902, particularly at the Himalaya mine. Demand fell off about 1911, declining after the Empress died in 1908. Pala was the site where morganite beryl was first discovered. In 1902 it was found to have the first commercially significant deposit of

kunzite Spodumene is a pyroxene mineral consisting of lithium aluminium inosilicate, Li Al( Si O3)2, and is a source of lithium. It occurs as colorless to yellowish, purplish, or lilac kunzite (see below), yellowish-green or emerald-green hiddenite, pr ...

, named after

George F. Kunz George Frederick Kunz (September 29, 1856 – June 29, 1932) was an American mineralogist and mineral collector. Biography Kunz was born in Manhattan, New York City, USA, and began an interest in minerals at a very young age. By his teens, he ...

, the godfather of gemology.

References

Unincorporated communities in San Diego County, California Unincorporated communities in California {{SanDiegoCountyCA-geo-stub

Mineral resources

See also

References