Trabuco Creek - History

History

It is hypothesized that Hokan-speaking Native Americans of Shoshone origin occupied a 12-mile (19 km)-long, 8-mile (13 km)-wide strip of land along much of central Trabuco Creek and most of Oso Creek, its major tributary, beginning at an unknown date. The Shoshoneans centered around the Trabuco/Oso Creek confluence and had a primarily hunter-gatherer way of life. Eventually, the people in the Southern Orange County/Northern San Diego County area settled down in semi-permanent villages, and this area became part of the Acjachemen tribal territory. There were two Acjachemen villages on the main stem of the Trabuco and one on Oso Creek, as well as numerous settlements at the confluence of San Juan and Trabuco Creeks all the way downstream to the Pacific. This was the historic landscape encountered by the Spanish conquistadors when they began expeditions to the area in the 18th century.

In 1769 Gaspar de Portolà led an expedition to the canyons of the Santa Ana Mountains. They camped on a bluff east of Trabuco Creek on the night of July 24–25, and the next day, one of the soldiers found his trabuco, or blunderbuss (the type of gun), missing. The expedition never found the gun, and they named the creek Arroyo Trabuco as a memorial. Mission San Juan Capistrano was established in 1776 at the confluence of San Juan and Trabuco creeks.

Rancho Trabuco was a Mexican land grant that covered most of the upper Trabuco Creek watershed. Created in 1841, its boundaries were changed in both 1843 and 1846. In 1880, the land was sold to F.L.S. Pioche and the final owners were James L. Flood and Jerome O'Neill, who created the O'Neill Ranch out of the Rancho Trabuco. The name stayed and most of the ranch is now the site of O'Neill Regional Park, which was dedicated on October 5, 1982.