GEORGE CARDINET
AND THE ANZA TRAIL
IN THE BEGINNING

The American Revolution Bicentennial prompted a nationwide search for appropriate bicentennial themes to commemorate. Although most bicentennial themes revolved around the Declaration of Independence and the Revolutionary war and kindred subjects with an eastern seaboard locale it seemed the west coast would have to sit this grand celebration out.

Not so, said the Bicentennial Committees of California and Arizona and such knowledgeable historians as Helen Schropshire of Monterey, California AND Sidney Brinkerhoff of Tucson with a reminder that an equal reorienting event had taken place out on the west coast!

While Paul Revere was making his famous ride through the New England country side Colonel Juan Bautista de Anza and 240 of his countrymen in 1775-76 were riding from Horcasitas, Sonora, Mexico to the just discovered San Francisco Bay on the West Coast.

The world's greatest harbor unoccupied and virtually still unknown except by native peoples began to look like the pawn two avaricious European powers Russia and Great Britain. In fact, Russia had already established a post, Fort Ross some 60 miles up the Pacific Coast from which would be shortly named San Francisco.

The Anza Expedition caught up in the Bicentennial celebrations had made as noteworthy a mark on history as the Revolution. Russian and British expansion in the new world had been nipped and had inadvertently established the boundaries of the new nation being born on the East Coast.

Helen Shropshire, Sidney Brinerhoff and the Bicentennial Committees of California and Arizona enlisted George Cardinet and others in commemorating the route of the Anza expediton with a reenactment. This became an historically garbed reenactment true to the diaries of Anza and Font, retracing the expedition's footsteps precisely both geographically and chronologically.

In a wave of historic and patriotic fervor, the 1975 replica of Anza's party took off in October from Horcasitas.

Immediately prior to this, Helen led a party of Expedition descendents, George Cardinet and others to Mexico City emulating Anza's journey to receive his marching orders from the Viceroy so many years ago. Dr. Juan Ygnacio Rodriguez, a Charro and medical doctor of note had organized an American Revolution Bicentennial Committee in Mexico City. Under their auspices as well as the Charros of Mexico, a gala ceremony was held in the Zocalo (the enormous square encompassed by the President's Palace formerly the Viceroy's), the magnificent Cathedral and various government buildings.

Taking custody of a beautiful mochila whose canteens carried various documents for transport to San Francisco, Dr. Rodriquez, the first De Anza took off leading a mounted parade of charros and descendents through the city and to Chapultepec Park. From there, the trek was on to Horcasitas.

George Cardinet, meanwhile had been organizing the 1000 mile reenactment in California which would take over from Arizona's Brinkerhoff at the Colorado River in Yuma.

By the time the reenactment crossed the Colorado, organization was completed and Cardinet joined the reenactment on the California shore and rode the rest of the way in to San Francisco. Receptions, Barbecues and Fiestas greeted the group at every town and whistle stop on the way as it had in Mexico and Arizona.

Cardinet, experiencing firsthand the sublimity of the Anza saga determined that such a unique individual whom historians have called the greatest pathfinder of all time, his gallant brave men women and children (116 of the 240 were children) and their history making expedition should have a continuing recognition.

With this resolve a campaign to establish the route of the Anza Expedition as a National Historic Trail was begun in 1980. A great non-partisan effort including Senator Alan Cranston and Congressman George Miller, Mayor Diane Feinstein. After 10 years, President George Bush finally signed it into law in 1990.

The old county chair persons of the 1975-76 reenactment were reassembled with an enthusiastic group of new recruits into an action organization under Heritage Trails to be known as "Amigos de Anza". This action group has taken over the continued implementation of the Anza Trail to make this Trail a reality.

In 1996, a Relay over the route under the monitoring of Directors, Nancy DuPont and Jeannie Gillen concluded a land mark event in 54 days out of Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico.

The result of that astounding public awareness effort has resulted today in 13 miles of new trail in Santa Cruz County, Arizona; the acceptance of a 4 and ½ section of the trail from Tumacacori to Tubac in Arizona. It also resulted in the passage of a Bond Issue in Pima County, Arizona with $830,000 for the Anza Trail. Another section in Green Valley Arizona is nearing acquisition.

18 miles of trail was dedicated in the Anza Borrego Desert in California, likewise in Coyote Canyon in Henry Coe State Park, Santa Clara County, California. Also the two mile Delta De Anza Trail in Contra Costa County, California as well as Anza's Camp # 101 at Antioch, California where a plaque and monument are to be dedicated this coming month under the auspices of the East Bay Regional Park District and the City of Antioch. This is the site that Father Font of the Expedition named the Sierra Nevada. In those days the snow-crested mountains were visible from the San Francisco Bay.

Nancy DuPont, Executive Director
Heritage Trails
1350 Castle Rock Road
Walnut Creek, CA
510-937-7661
FAX 510-934-7431