Bonita Avenue, looking north from the Depot at Monte Vista, 1907 2. What can you tell me about the early history of the area?
As long ago as 1000 B.C., Gabrielino Indians were thought to be the first inhabitants of the region that became San Dimas, though some archaeologists have found evidence that other Indians tribes lived there 7,000 years ago. Spanish frontier soldier Juan Baptista DeAnza and his party were the first white people to pass through the area when, in 1774, they stopped in what later became Mud Springs en route from Mexico to Monterey. More than half a century later, Jedediah Strong Smith was the first American to come overland when he camped in the region on a beaver-trapping expedition. Inhabitants started putting down roots there little more than a decade later when, in 1837, Ygnacio Palomares and Ricardo Vejar started the Rancho San Jose as part of a Mexican land grant. Between 1872 and 1870 Dennis Clancy and his wife ran a stage station near Mud Springs and their children were the first Americans born there after California joined the Union in 1850. The Teague family, whose citrus nurser
