Great Secrets of Our National Parks
Some of the best findings by accidental anthropologists and studied experts.
Categories: Featured Travel Stories , Photo Gallery
By: TW Editors 06/01/2008
Golden Gate NRA, CA
Spanish Presidio’s Hidden History
Many flock to El Polin Spring to watch birds such as the Townsend’s Warbler and the Dark-eyed Junco.
Yet the secrets of this spring were only unlocked recently, in 2003, a decade after Barbara Voss and other archaeologists had located the remains of the Spanish fort that defended San Francisco Bay from 1776 until 1846, when the U.S. Army took over the site.
Students picked away with shovels and dental picks outside of Spain’s northern-most outpost, El Presidio de San Francisco, at El Polin Spring, hoping to find an outlying building that would reveal how civilians interacted with local Californios.
When they struck greenish serpentine stone, they had hit pay dirt, noted Voss, an assistant professor of anthropology at the Stanford Archaeology Center.
They not only uncovered the site of pioneers linked to the founding of Yerba Buena, which became San Francisco, but they also learned that the military may have placed the civilians there to protect the water source. The foundation of the home had been built to military specifications, which discredits an earlier belief that families left the fort on their own.
The home they found is believed to be that of Marcos Briones and his three adult daughters, most notably Juana, who was one of the few Mexican women who purchased a land grant (she did not inherit it from her husband or other relative).
Given its important source of water, El Polin Springs may have been where San Francisco “began,” says Alison Stone, senior environmental planner for the Presidio Trust. If true, that’s certainly something to chirp about.
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