Once a Village Named P?jaro

When the land expedition of Alta California led by Captain Gaspar de Portola passed through this valley in 1769, they reached the P?jaro River, which they named for a large straw-stuffed bird (p?jaro in Spanish) with a wing span of six feet that they found in a deserted Indian village. It was this expedition which included soldiers, volunteers, Indians from Baja California, and Father Juan Crespi that also first discovered the Redwood Tree near Pinto Lake.

Years later in 1852, a small village name P?jaro was laid out along a narrow and dusty stagecoach road which wound through the P?jaro Valley and over the P?jaro River to Monterey County. Merchants came to the valley, many from mining fields, bringing their wagons full of goods. Tents and small roughly framed buildings sprang up on the main street first called P?jaro Street. Spanish cattle often were herded through the village and stopped to graze in an open field which was to become the City Plaza. Men were hanged for horse stealing and murder and sometimes they could be seen hanging from the wooden bridge that crossed the P?jaro River.

P?jaro was renamed Watsonville for one of the early pioneers of the P?jaro Valley, Judge John Howard Watson, and incorporated in 1868.

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Show me all markers in:  Watsonville, CA  |  Santa Cruz County  |  95076  |  California  |  United States of America

Porter Building
A Year to Remember in Watsonville
This Gun Was Used
The Lettunich Building
The Mansion House
Judge Julius Lee House
Where Strawberries are Sweeter
The Apple Annual
Men Die O Liberty That Thou Endurs
The Portol? Expedition

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