Small Park Marks a Peak in the History of California

History buffs, John Steinbeck fans, geologists, amateur astronomers and people looking for an incredible view are drawn to this mountain top overlooking Monterey Bay.

It was 142 years ago today that Fremont Peak played a key role in a drama that eventually resulted in California becoming a state.

That was the day John C. Fremont and his armed band of 62 men raised the U.S. flag in defiance of the Mexican government on the pile of rocks that made up the top of this 3,171-foot mountain.

A plaque to commemorate the event was placed on the summit of Fremont Peak in 1925 by the Native Sons of the Golden West. And 188 acres on the mountain top was designated a state park in 1936.

‘Off the Beaten Path’

“It’s just a small park off the beaten path 11 miles up a narrow winding road from the tiny village of San Juan Bautista,” said Rick Morales, 41, the park’s sole ranger for the last four years. He and his wife, Debra, and their infant daughter, Carmen, live on the mountain top.

Fremont Peak was Steinbeck’s favorite mountain. He often came here to write in solitude.

In “Travels with Charlie,” he wrote of “climbing the last spiky rocks to the top of Fremont Peak, the highest point for miles around. This solitary stone peak overlooks the whole of my childhood and youth, the great Salinas Valley, the town of Salinas where I was born. I remember how once I wanted to be buried on this peak where I could see everything I knew and loved.”

On March 4, 1906, local residents rode horseback up the mountain to launch a tradition, Fremont Peak Day.

After several years of rain-outs on March 4, the annual celebration was moved to the last Sunday in April. The day is marked by a picnic and a re-enactment of the flag-raising.

Fremont and his men had come to California on his third of five expeditions to the West. They were camped near Monterey, capital of the Mexican province of Alta California.

Mexican officials accused Fremont of insulting their nation and ordered him and his men to leave immediately. The group retreated 25 miles to what was then known as Hawk Mountain, where they built a log fort and ceremoniously raised the American flag on the mountain top.

Gen. Jose Castro, commander of the Mexican forces, was incensed. He marched his troops to the foot of the mountain.

The flag already had been flying for three days. Just about the time Castro’s men arrived, heavy winds toppled the flagpole, which was made from a tall sapling.

Fremont took it as an omen, and before a shooting match erupted he and his men left and made their way to Oregon.

“When he raised that flag it really started the ball rolling for California to become part of the United States,” Morales said.

Within two years after the flag-raising on Hawk Mountain--later renamed Fremont Peak--an uprising against Mexican authority had taken place under the banner of the Bear Flag Republic. Fremont was one of the leaders of the uprising, which succeeded. And he became the American military governor of California.

After statehood, he was one of California’s first two U.S. senators. In 1856, he ran as the Republican Party’s first presidential candidate, but lost to Democrat James Buchanan. Fremont served as a general in the Civil War and later as territorial governor of Arizona.

Near the top of the mountain is an observatory housing a 30-inch telescope erected 1 1/2 years ago by the 160-member Fremont Peak Observatory Assn.

“Fremont Peak is one of the most popular mountains in Northern California for amateur astronomers. The air is clear. The peak comes alive in the dark . . . and upwards of 100 star-gazers come here to set up their telescopes,” Morales said.

Geologists and university students also make the pilgrimage to the mountain because of the peak’s unusual formation, limestone over granite.

Little did John Fremont know when he raised that flag so long ago how important to so many people this mountain would become.