Pueblo de las Juntas (also La Juntas and Fresno) is a former settlement in
Fresno County, California
Fresno County (), officially the County of Fresno, is a county located in the central portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 Census, the population was 1,008,654. The county seat is Fresno, the fifth-most populous city in Cali ...
situated at the confluence of the
San Joaquin River
The San Joaquin River (; es, Río San Joaquín) is the longest river of Central California. The long river starts in the high Sierra Nevada, and flows through the rich agricultural region of the northern San Joaquin Valley before reaching Suis ...
and
Fresno Slough Fresno Slough is a distributary of the Kings River that connects the North Fork Kings River to the San Joaquin River in San Joaquin Valley, Kings County, California.
Until 1879 when irrigation diversions prevented it, Fresno Slough was also an ou ...
,
north of
Mendota.
Pueblo de las Juntas was one of the first places settled by Spaniards in
San Joaquin Valley
The San Joaquin Valley ( ; es, Valle de San Joaquín) is the area of the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California that lies south of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and is drained by the San Joaquin River. It comprises seven c ...
in 1810. The name ''las Juntas'' ( es, the junctions), a reference to the location at the confluence of two streams. The name fresno ( es, ash tree) commemorates two large
ash tree
''Fraxinus'' (), commonly called ash, is a genus of flowering plants in the olive and lilac family, Oleaceae. It contains 45–65 species of usually medium to large trees, mostly deciduous, though a number of subtropical species are evergree ...
s growing on the riverbank at the site.
It was connected to the coast settlements via a route west along
Panoche Creek
Panoche Creek is a creek in San Benito and Fresno Counties, California, in the United States.
Historical names include Arroyo de Panoche Grande (Big Sugarloaf Creek)Mildred B. Hoover, et al. ''Historic Spots in California''. 3rd edition. Stanfo ...
to
Panoche Pass
Panoche Pass is a mountain pass within the Diablo Range in San Benito County, California connecting the southern extremity of the Santa Clara Valley in the west to the Panoche Valley and San Joaquin Valley in the east. The name ''Panoche Pass'' ...
in the
Diablo Range
The Diablo Range is a mountain range in the California Coast Ranges subdivision of the Pacific Coast Ranges in northern California, United States. It stretches from the eastern San Francisco Bay area at its northern end to the Salinas Valley are ...
, to
Tres Pinos and northwest to
Mission San Juan Bautista
Mission San Juan Bautista is a Spanish mission in San Juan Bautista, San Benito County, California. Founded on June 24, 1797 by Fermín Lasuén of the Franciscan order, the mission was the fifteenth of the Spanish missions established in presen ...
and west to
Monterey
Monterey (; es, Monterrey; Ohlone: ) is a city located in Monterey County on the southern edge of Monterey Bay on the U.S. state of California's Central Coast. Founded on June 3, 1770, it functioned as the capital of Alta California under bot ...
. It was also on the eastern route of
El Camino Viejo
El Camino Viejo a Los Ángeles ( en, the Old Road to Los Angeles), 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 Cal ...
.
References
External links
RESIDENTS OF PUEBLO DE LAS JUNTAS
Former populated places in California
Former settlements in Fresno County, California
San Joaquin Valley
{{FresnoCountyCA-geo-stub