Discovering Cities in California Series - El Camino Real Missions

California Camino Real Bells on the Mission Trail
California is rich with history and the El Camino Real Mission Trail running the length of California has rich routes to our highway system as well as rich Spanish and religious history. These missions located along California were actually the Spaniards Fortresses. 

The California State Highways that are a part of the Mission Trail that starts near the southern end of California at the Mexican Border in San Diego County at what is now Presidio Park and Mission de Alcala San Diego and the trail runs nearest the Pacific Ocean continuously to Mission de Solano in Sonoma County just north of San Francisco. 

Along this route which mostly uses the 5 Freeway Highway 101 and Highway 1 features 21 missions, 2 Pueblos and 4 Preidos and even Logic as a child traveling along the coastline of California both north from Orange County and south from Orange County remembers seeing the fortresses or outposts as well as the El Camino Bells. The California Mission Trail route is 600 miles.

The Bells were manufactured by the California Bell Company a company that made all of the original bells and the new bells utilizing the same mold for the new bells that made the original bells. This Bell company is a California story within itself and you can visit the California Bell Company here California Bell Company

This is like a piece of California History within itself and in fact Logic found out while watching the PBS television program aired state wide but in California only that Television personality Huell Howser called California’s Gold here Huell Howsers California’s Gold PBS television program that the company made a souvenir El Camino Real Bell from 1914 until 1955 by watching another one of Huell Howsers amazing shows about collecting bells and the comment was these bell collectors are “Dingy” so through some searching Logic acquired an original souvenir bell from those early years and we proudly have it displayed in our operations center in the heart of Palm Springs, California with other California memorabilia.

We are building our California Weather Authority web site project to be a bigger part of California History and you can view our California city by city weather and local information project here California Discoveries city by city. 

The Bells and the outposts are recognized as historic land marks which originally there were 450 Bells built with the first Bell being installed at the Plaza Church in the pueblo on August 15, 1906 near the Famous downtown location known as Olvera Street a visitor destination of authentic Spanish and Mexican heritage fun for the whole family truly.

California wanted to mark the 100 anniversary of the first Bell placement in 1906 at Olvera Street so there were 115 more Bells made and placed prior to 2006 making the grand total 555 new bells plus the existing bells and along the highway system the Bells were placed on both sides of the highways every 1 to 2 miles apart.