La Panza Canyon is a valley in the La Panza Range of San Luis Obispo County, California, with its mouth at an elevation of 1,509 feet, or about 460 meters. It is chiefly significant as the site of a gold strike in 1878, a discovery that triggered a local gold rush and led to the founding of La Panza, California. The canyon's historical importance rests on how that brief burst of mineral discovery transformed the area from a geographic feature into the center of a new settlement.