ORANGE COUNTY ALMANAC : A Soldier’s Blunder
A few miles east of what is now Lake Forest, Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portola in 1769 set up camp in the foothills. He named it Trabuco, Spanish for the short-barreled gun known in English as a blunderbuss.
De Portola chose that name because one of his soldiers lost one of the valuable weapons there. The area has been known ever since as Trabuco Canyon.
Source: “Reflections in Orange” by Warren Morgan
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