Gaspar de Portola
By Bill Drake
The site of the village where Portola first made local contact, Pruristac, looks inviting today. It was on the north bank of San Pedro Creek behind where the Sanchez Adobe now sits.
The journals of the explorers referred to the population of “six or seven families” in the village. The Ohlone in this area made huts of tules tied over willow branch frames… When the Spanish explorers arrived, one of the thing they noticed was that the Ohlones were extracting lime from a small cave such as this one, on the site that became the Rockaway Quarry. The Indians made use of the mineral for body paint. Subsequently, the Spanish enlarged the diggings to provide whitewash for the mission and presidio buildings from San Francisco to San Jose from 1780-1782.
The only other village in Pacifica evident to the explorers was Timigtac, near what is now the intersection of Reina Del Mar Avenue and Highway 1. There were no other villages along the coast from here to go to the Golden Gate because the soil was very sandy and the winds blew strongly much of the time. Explorers said that perhaps only one extended family lived on this site. A substantial shellmound, or midden, is on the site, an indication that quantities of “clams and mussels were consumed there over a period of many years. It may have been used mainly for periodic gathering of seafood, much as a hunting lodge is used.
From Pacifica
The site of the village where Portola first made local contact, Pruristac, looks inviting today. It was on the north bank of San Pedro Creek behind where the Sanchez Adobe now sits.
The journals of the explorers referred to the population of “six or seven families” in the village. The Ohlone in this area made huts of tules tied over willow branch frames… When the Spanish explorers arrived, one of the thing they noticed was that the Ohlones were extracting lime from a small cave such as this one, on the site that became the Rockaway Quarry. The Indians made use of the mineral for body paint. Subsequently, the Spanish enlarged the diggings to provide whitewash for the mission and presidio buildings from San Francisco to San Jose from 1780-1782.
The only other village in Pacifica evident to the explorers was Timigtac, near what is now the intersection of Reina Del Mar Avenue and Highway 1. There were no other villages along the coast from here to go to the Golden Gate because the soil was very sandy and the winds blew strongly much of the time. Explorers said that perhaps only one extended family lived on this site. A substantial shellmound, or midden, is on the site, an indication that quantities of “clams and mussels were consumed there over a period of many years. It may have been used mainly for periodic gathering of seafood, much as a hunting lodge is used.