History Buffs Will Camp to Celebrate De Anza Date

If 18th century explorer Juan Bautista de Anza were alive today, he probably wouldn’t recognize the spot where he once camped more than 200 years ago, roughly where Las Virgenes Road intersects with the busy Ventura Freeway.

But were he to visit Malibu Creek State Park on Sunday, he might feel more at home. There he would encounter 15 or so people bearing an uncanny resemblance to people he once knew.

The people are history buffs who each year don colorful period garb to reenact De Anza’s overnight stay on Feb. 22, 1776, in what is now Calabasas. Organizers say the event, first held in 1985, is an effort to keep De Anza’s legacy from being lost in history’s dustbin.

It’s a labor of love for the organizers. De Anza will be played by Rod Bergen, a businessman for whom acting is a pastime. And Father Pedro Font, De Anza’s sidekick of sorts, will be played by Calabasas Mayor Dennis Washburn.

While a school, park and trail are named for De Anza in the Calabasas area, elsewhere in Southern California many people know little about him. When De Anza left Mexico in 1774 to chart a route to what is now San Francisco, California was largely an uncharted wilderness, believed by some to be an island. But De Anza and his party of 240 settlers made it through, in part due to De Anza’s rapport with Native Americans they encountered along the way, according to historians. Only one person, a woman in childbirth, was lost.

To honor him, Congress in 1990 designated Juan Bautista de Anza’s route--a portion of which runs through Calabasas-- a National Historic Trail.