Francisco Garcés

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Francisco Garcés
Franciscan
friar, priest and explorer

Francisco Hermenegildo Tomás Garcés

explorer in the colonial Viceroyalty of New Spain. He explored much of the southwestern region of North America, including present day Sonora and Baja California in Mexico, and the U.S. states of Arizona and California
. He was killed along with his companion friars during an uprising by the Native American population, and they have been declared martyrs for the faith by the Catholic Church. The cause for his canonization was opened by the Church.[1]

History

Garcés was born April 12, 1738, in

priest in 1763 in Spain.[2]

New Spain

Garces Memorial Circle in Bakersfield, California, memorializes when Garcés came to the area of modern-day Bakersfield in 1776.

Garcés travelled to New Spain (

Tucson, Arizona.[2]

Missionary

The expulsion of the Jesuits by the Spanish King set in motion a sequence of dramatic events in the missions. The Franciscans from the college of Santa Cruz in Querétaro took over responsibility in the Sonoran Desert missions region in the present-day Mexican state of Sonora and the U.S. state of Arizona. Meanwhile, other Franciscans from the college of San Fernando in Mexico City under the leadership of Junípero Serra, were assigned to replace the Jesuits in the Baja California missions of the lower Las Californias Province.

Explorer

Garces Memorial High School in Bakersfield is named after Garcés.

Garcés became a key player in this effort, conducting extensive explorations in the Sonoran, Colorado, and

Mojave, Hopi, and Havasupai.[2] Many journeys were explorations on his own in the deserts. He accompanied soldier-explorer Juan Bautista de Anza part way in both his large overland expeditions: the 1774 De Anza Expedition - first to reach Alta California's Pacific coast from the east; and the 1775-76 Anza Colonizing Expedition, which traveled as far north as San Francisco Bay.[2] Garcés also crossed the Mojave Desert on the Mohave Trail and then the Old Tejon Pass and explored the southern San Joaquin Valley in 1776. The eastern part of the route Garcés took from the Colorado River across the Mojave Desert is known to four-wheel-drive adventurers today as the Mojave Road.[2]

Death

In 1779–81 Garcés and

Yuma Revolt.[2]

Garcés' body was later reinterred at Mission San Pedro y San Pablo del Tubutama. He and the other friars killed at those missions are considered martyrs by the Catholic Church.[3]

Legacy

El Garces Hotel in Needles, CA, built in 1908 and named for Garcés.
El Garces Hotel

The

El Garces Hotel, named in Francisco Garcés' honor, is the historic 1908 Santa Fe Railroad station and Harvey House hotel 'oasis' located in the City of Needles. It is located in eastern California above the Colorado River, a site Garcés passed through during the 1776 Anza expedition. The El Garces Hotel was built by the Santa Fe Railroad under contract with the Fred Harvey Company. It is designed in an elegant Neoclassical and Beaux-Arts style, and the El Garces was considered the "Crown Jewel" of the entire Fred Harvey
chain.

National Forest

Garces National Forest was established by the U.S. Forest Service in southern Arizona on July 1, 1908, with 78,480 acres (317.6 km2) from portions of Baboquivari, Tumacacori and Huachuca National Forests. The name was discontinued in 1911 when it was combined with Coronado National Forest.

Bakersfield

The first

Tejon Pass (original) between the Mojave Desert (and New Spain) over the Tehachapi Mountains to the southern San Joaquin Valley floor (future site of Bakersfield), California, had been discovered by Garcés in 1776, eastward from the Anza Colonizing Expedition route. Therefore, there are several landmarks for Francisco Garcés in Bakersfield, California: Garces Memorial High School, the city's Catholic high school; and on Chester Avenue Garces Memorial Circle, with a memorial statue
of Garcés.

Las Vegas, Nevada

The original platted east–west streets of the 1905 Las Vegas Township are all named for significant North American explorers, beginning with Stewart on the north, then Ogden, Fremont, Carson, Bridger, Lewis, Clark, Bonneville, Gass, and finally Garces on the south.

Reno, Nevada

St. Thomas Aquinas Cathedral has a stained glass window dedicated to Fray Garces.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ American Catholic.org Archived 2012-05-21 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ^ a b c d e f g mojavedesert.net: Garcés . accessed 1.1.2012
  3. ^ Garcés 1900, p. xxiv.

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Francisco Garcés.
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