Spanish Canyon, on the southwest side of Alvord Mountain in California’s Mojave Desert, was an important corridor in overland travel across the American Southwest. It took its name from the Old Spanish Trail, whose New Mexican caravans passed through here between Bitter Spring and the Mojave River. The canyon continued to serve travelers after the early trading era: from 1847 to 1849, Mormon emigrants and Forty-niners used it on the wagon road between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles known as the Mormon Road. By 1855, it had also become part of the freight wagon route linking those two cities.