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| Junior Ranger Package from Juan Bautista de Anza NHT |
Well, it's definitely been a while since I got a new badge. Life sort of happened, and I haven't been able to work on new projects for a long while. But I hope to get back into the swing of things in time for summer!
// endrambles
This is a package from Juan Bautista de Anza NHT (a NPS site that spans both Arizona and California). It is one of the Junior Ranger badges you can get by completing the exercises online (and frankly, I'm not sure you can get it any other way). I had completed this project a long while ago. . . but I just never got around to getting the badge. The idea is that you finish the program and then they send you an email asking for your contact information so they can mail you the badge. . .an email which had gone completely unnoticed! (So sorry to the ranger in charge of the project over there. How embarrassing... -_-) So I wrote back to the email and humbly asked if they would still send me the badge...and they did! Here's what was inside:
This is a package from Juan Bautista de Anza NHT (a NPS site that spans both Arizona and California). It is one of the Junior Ranger badges you can get by completing the exercises online (and frankly, I'm not sure you can get it any other way). I had completed this project a long while ago. . . but I just never got around to getting the badge. The idea is that you finish the program and then they send you an email asking for your contact information so they can mail you the badge. . .an email which had gone completely unnoticed! (So sorry to the ranger in charge of the project over there. How embarrassing... -_-) So I wrote back to the email and humbly asked if they would still send me the badge...and they did! Here's what was inside:
Juan Bautista de Anza NHT Junior Ranger Badge – awarded for completing the online Juan Bautista de Anza NHT Junior Ranger program.
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Juan Bautista de Anza NHT NPS Brochure – the standard NPS brochure describing the site. This was nice to read more about the history of the trail and to see how long the trail actually stretches.
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And that’s it! Please read a little bit about the program and park, which I have posted below, and if you are interested in Spanish-American history be sure to visit the trail which stretches from California to Arizona (with an additional 600 miles in Northern Mexico). But in the meantime…
Explore On, Junior Ranger! :)
Want your own Juan Bautista de Anza Junior Ranger Badge? Visit the park's Junior Ranger Page and follow the links to the online program. (You'll need a valid email address.) After you complete the program, a ranger will send you an email asking you for your address and you’ll get a badge for your efforts. :)
About the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail
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| The Presidio of San Francisco, a part of the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail. Photo courtesy NPS.gov |
¡Vayan Subiendo! - Everyone Mount Up!
From 1775 to 1776, during a time when Americans were fighting for their independence from England, Spanish Lieutenant Colonel Juan Bautista de Anza rallied his people with that call, leading more than 240 men, women and children on a 1,600-mile journey across the New Spanish frontier (modern-day Northern Mexico) to settle Alta California and establish a mission and presidio. This was the first overland route from New Spain (Mexico) to colonize San Francisco.
The idea to settle Alta California came from a dream that Anza's father had to find an overland route to the area beyond the Spanish frontier. Though his father died in an Apache ambush in 1740 when he was three years old, Anza followed in his father's footsteps by eventually joining the Spanish military and becoming a captain on the frontier in the Tubac Presidio. He would later pursue his father's dream by appealing to the Viceroy of New Spain (Antonio Maria Bucareli) to prove a land route to Alta California was possible. Anza received this permission and followed the Indian trading and mission travel routes, identifying a path in 1774 that would also allow passage for livestock and supplies.
Upon this success, Anza was then granted permission to recruit and lead a group of settlers that would establish the first colony in Alta California, a place called Rio San Francisco. Using stories of lush lands and plentiful resources to entice the residents of places like Culiacan, Sinaloa and Horcasitas, Sonora, he was able to recruit 30 families with the promise of pay and a new life away from their desert homeland. It became a sort of traveling town with over 300 people (settlers, military escorts, cowboys, mule packers, and Indian guides) and more than 1,000 head of livestock traversing through the desert.
He would safely lead his people and fulfill his father's dream on June 27, 1776, by successfully establishing Spain's northernmost colony in Alta California and changing the course of California history.
The Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail commemorates and protects the historic overland route plotted and traveled by Anza and the colonists during the years 1775-76 from Sonora, Mexico to what is now San Francisco, CA. In 1990, the Anza Trail was designated a National Historic Trail by Congress through an amendment to the National Trails System Act. The portion of the trail administered by the National Park Service in the United States spans 1,200 miles from Nogales, Arizona to San Francisco, CA, and traces the route of the 1775-76 Anza Expedition as closely as possible. There is another 600 miles of historic trail in Northern Mexico. Though there is no official Visitor's Center, portions of the US trail can be explored by "car, foot, horse, bicycle or train" with several Expedition Points of Interests and Interpretive Sites along the way.
From 1775 to 1776, during a time when Americans were fighting for their independence from England, Spanish Lieutenant Colonel Juan Bautista de Anza rallied his people with that call, leading more than 240 men, women and children on a 1,600-mile journey across the New Spanish frontier (modern-day Northern Mexico) to settle Alta California and establish a mission and presidio. This was the first overland route from New Spain (Mexico) to colonize San Francisco.
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| Anza on Horseback Illustration courtesy NPS.gov |
Upon this success, Anza was then granted permission to recruit and lead a group of settlers that would establish the first colony in Alta California, a place called Rio San Francisco. Using stories of lush lands and plentiful resources to entice the residents of places like Culiacan, Sinaloa and Horcasitas, Sonora, he was able to recruit 30 families with the promise of pay and a new life away from their desert homeland. It became a sort of traveling town with over 300 people (settlers, military escorts, cowboys, mule packers, and Indian guides) and more than 1,000 head of livestock traversing through the desert.
He would safely lead his people and fulfill his father's dream on June 27, 1776, by successfully establishing Spain's northernmost colony in Alta California and changing the course of California history.
The Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail commemorates and protects the historic overland route plotted and traveled by Anza and the colonists during the years 1775-76 from Sonora, Mexico to what is now San Francisco, CA. In 1990, the Anza Trail was designated a National Historic Trail by Congress through an amendment to the National Trails System Act. The portion of the trail administered by the National Park Service in the United States spans 1,200 miles from Nogales, Arizona to San Francisco, CA, and traces the route of the 1775-76 Anza Expedition as closely as possible. There is another 600 miles of historic trail in Northern Mexico. Though there is no official Visitor's Center, portions of the US trail can be explored by "car, foot, horse, bicycle or train" with several Expedition Points of Interests and Interpretive Sites along the way.
