El Camino Viejo

History

The route of El Camino Viejo was well established by the 1820s and had been used by Spanish colonial carretas as early as 1780 as a more direct route than El Camino Real to the recently established Mission Santa Clara de Asís and Mission San Francisco de Asís. At that time the Bay Area section ran from the mouth of Arroyo Las Positas southwest across the mouths of Arroyo Mocho and Arroyo Valle to Arroyo de la Laguna, then followed it south to its confluence with Arroyo de la Alameda, crossing the hills via Mission Pass to the coastal plain and Mission Santa Clara.

The Los Angeles Area section left El Camino Real in the San Fernando Valley. After the 1797 foundation of Mission San José, the road was turned northward from there, crossing Arroyo de San Leandro and Arroyo de San Lorenzo to the anchorage in what is now the Oakland Estuary, where cargo could be ferried across the bay. This route along the unsettled frontier came to be favored by those wishing to avoid Spanish authorities along the more settled coastal El Camino Real.

Settlements such as Las Juntas, Rancho Centinela (established 1810), and later Poso de Chane grew along the route. Californio vaqueros made El Camino Viejo a well-known trail connecting Rancho San Antonio with the Pueblo de Los Ángeles, running cattle and beginning to establish inland Mexican land grant ranchos along it in the 1840s. Californio mesteñeros also moved into the San Joaquin Valley to catch mustangs, holding them in temporary corrals before herding them to the Bay Area, Southern California, or Sonora and other parts of northern Mexico.

During the California Gold Rush, a shortcut developed at the northern end as part of the Oakland to Stockton Road, running from Oakland east through Castro Valley and Rancho San Ramon to the San Joaquin Valley and Stockton.