Fr. Francisco Hermenegildo Tomás Garcés (April 12, 1738 – July 18, 1781) was a Spanish priest who crossed the Mojave Desert in 1776. This map shows his route across the Victor Valley. Following the Mojave River after crossing at Oro Grande, he walked through downtown Victorville, bypassing the rocky narrows and connecting with the river near today’s Mojave Narrows Regional Park. Following the river to where the West fork and Deep Creek join to form the Mojave. He visited with the Indians and then went up Sawpit Canyon and over the mountain ridge, descending into the verdant sycamore grove known today as Glen Helen.
Fifty years after Fr. Garcés made his way across the Mojave from the Colorado River, in 1826, Jedediah Smith retraced the trail of Garcés along the river, then up and over the mountains. In 1827, one year after his first crossing, Smith had lost most of his men in a massacre at the Colorado River. Desperate for the safety of civilization, Smith, after crossing the Mojave River in Oro Grande, made his way directly to the Cajon Pass, bypassing the San Bernardino Mountains.
