Created by the California Mission Trails Association, “Along El Camino Real” is a 1950s travelogue showing off California and its missions. Images include San Diego and Coronado Bay, Los Angeles and Hollywood, Santa Barbara, the “Ghost Town” tourist attraction, Mission San Fernando, San Francisco, and much more.
“El Camino Real” or King’s Highway was supposedly originated by Father Junipero Serra. The trail between San Diego and San Francisco was revived in the American period in connection with the boosterism associated with the Mission Revival movement of the early 20th century. In 1912, California began paving a section of the historic route in San Mateo County. Construction of a two-lane concrete highway began in front of the historic Uncle Tom’s Cabin, an inn in San Bruno that was built in 1849 and demolished exactly 100 years later. There was little traffic initially and children used the pavement for roller skating until traffic increased. By the late 1920s, California began the first of numerous widening projects of what later became part of U.S. Route 101. Today the route through San Mateo and Santa Clara counties is designated as State Route 82, and some stretches of it are named El Camino Real. An unpaved portion of the original El Camino Real has been preserved just east of Mission San Juan Bautista in San Juan Bautista, California. The old road is part of the de Anza route, located a few miles east of Route 101.
El Camino Real (Spanish for The Royal Road, also known as The King’s Highway) and sometimes associated with Calle Real usually refers to the historic 600-mile (966-kilometer), connecting the former Alta California’s 21 missions (along with a number of sub-missions), 4 presidios, and 3 pueblos, stretching from Mission San Diego de Alcalá in San Diego in the south to Mission San Francisco Solano in Sonoma north.
The route originated in Baja California Sur, Mexico, at the site of Misión San Bruno in San Bruno (the first mission established in Las Californias), though it was only maintained as far south as Loreto. Today, many streets throughout California that either follow or run parallel to this historic route still bear the “El Camino Real” name.
We encourage viewers to add comments and, especially, to provide additional information about our videos by adding a comment! See something interesting? Tell people what it is and what they can see by writing something for example like: “01:00:12:00 — President Roosevelt is seen meeting with Winston Churchill at the Quebec Conference.”
This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
