SAN GABRIEL CELEBRATES-ITS PLACE IN HISTORY WITH “LOS POBLADORES-WALK TO LOS ANGELES” AND WITH “23TH LA FIESTA DE SAN GABRIEL”

history and welcome participants to ”Los Pobladores – Walk to Los Angeles” celebrating San Gabriel and Los Angeles shared living history and Los Angeles 228th founding.

Everyone is invited to lace up their walking shoes at 6:00 a.m. on Saturday, September 5th to reenact a key chapter in California’s history. Join the descendants of Los Pobladores (the settlers), city and county officials, walking groups, and history and culture lovers for the nine-mile walk from San Gabriel Mission to Los Angeles celebrating the September 4, 1781 founding of El Pueblo de la Reina de

Los Angeles, today, the great metropolitan City of Los Angeles.

The annual Walk reenacts the 178l journey of the original Spanish bouncy castle for sale settlers of Los Angeles, known as Los Pobladores, nine-mile trek from San Gabriel Mission to the Los Angeles River where, on September 4. 1781 , they founded EI Pueblo de la Reina de Los Angeles. The founding of Los Angeles came 10 years after the founding of San Gabriel Mission, founded in 1771. The Pobladores were not Spanish grandees or members of the aristocracy. They were mostly poor farmers and soldiers recruited from northwest Mexico by Felipe de Neve, Governor of the Californias. Like San Gabriel and

Los Angeles today, the Pobladores were a racially diverse group. Over half were of partial African ancestry. They were a mixture of Native American, African and European, and they came in two groups across the deserts of Sonora and Baja California.

San Gabriel Mission was the staging area where they prepared for their objective: to establish an agricultural colony and pueblo along the Los Angeles River.

”The Walk to Los Angeles is the peoples’ Walk”, stated San Gabriel Mayor Juli Costanzo. ”San Gabriel celebrates its diverse, multi-cultural past, present and future, and the annual Walk to Los Angeles provides an opportunity to commemorate and honor the contributions of generations of people from all cultural and ethnic backgrounds, who have come to the region and made our community what it is

today. We invite the entire Los Angeles city family and surrounding communities to join us in this historic celebration”.

The early morning, moderate nine-mile walk from San Gabriel Mission heads west along Mission Road for nine miles, and ends approximately 3 hours later at El Pueblo Monument, home to the world famous Olvera Street where walkers are greeted with a warm Los Angeles welcome celebrating Los Angeles’ 228th birthday.

Founded in 1771, San Gabriel Mission is the fourth mission established in the chain of 21

California missions and is the original county settlement south of San Luis Obispo and north of San Diego. Over the three-day Labor Day weekend, the Mission celebrates 238 years with the ”238th Fiesta de San Gabriel”.

From Friday, September 4 through Sunday, September 6, a variety of festivities will take place at the Mission’s Fiesta including rides, games, religious, historic and cultural festivities, international foods, entertainment and prizes. Thousands of people from Los Angeles and Orange counties attend the mission’s three-day Fiesta to view the restored Mission, museum and grounds, and to visit and experience the historic San Gabriel Mission District – Birthplace of the Los Angeles region!

The events are free and everyone is welcome. To register on-line or download a registration form for the Walk and for related information, visit: www.lacity.org/228, www.sangabrielcity.com, or call 213/ 485-8376.

Public bus transportation back to the Mission is available for all walkers from the south side of Union Station on bus #487 departing for San Gabriel every hour. Cost for public transportation is $1.85.

For information about the Mission’s 238th Fiesta celebration, contact Algis Marciuska at 626/457-3034 or Chuck Lyons at 626/457-3035.