On May 3, 1776, at a Yokut village site in Grizzly Gulch three miles north of this point, Father Francisco Garcés performed the first recorded baptism in the San Joaquin Valley. The service was for a dying Yokut boy he called Muchachito (young boy). Garcés was a missionary and explorer in New Spain who made five journeys during the 13 years he lived at San Javier Del Bac near present-day Tucson, Arizona. He was martyred five years later on July 19, 1781, in California west of Yuma, Arizona.