Black Star Canyon in the Santa Ana Mountains of eastern Orange County has long been a significant Native place, known under Spanish and Mexican rule as Cañada de los Indios and home to the upper-canyon village of Puhú, a seasonal mountain settlement important to the history of the Tongva-Gabrieliño and neighboring peoples. In 1831, trappers led by William Wolfskill attacked villagers there; recent scholarship identifies the event as a communal massacre rather than the horse-theft battle once claimed. The canyon later took its present name from coal mining begun in 1879, and its Native history, mining remains, and later violence all shaped its enduring reputation.