On January 1, 1776, the first party of colonists to come overland to the Pacific Coast crossed the Santa Ana River south of this site and camped between there and the river. Recruited in the presidios of Sonora, Mexico, and led by Lt. Col. Juan Bautista de Anza, who had established the trail a year earlier, this band of 242 men, women and children continued north and founded San Francisco. Their journey helped set a boundary to Russian expansion from the north. Before the opening of De Anza's Trail, three precarious missions were maintained by uncertain ocean voyages, but afterward the flourishing missions and ranchos of Spanish California grew from the droves of cattle, sheep, and horses brought over the trail.