Cabrillo, Portola, and the Naming of El Morro
Near Morro Bay, California
The written history of Morro Bay begins with a distant sail. In the autumn of fifteen forty two, the Spanish expedition of Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo worked its way up the California coast, and historians believe his crews were the first Europeans to lay eyes on Morro Rock. Tradition credits the Spanish with naming it El Morro, from the Spanish word for a round hill, which is how the great stone looked from the sea.
More than two centuries passed before Europeans arrived by land. In seventeen sixty nine, the Portola expedition, the first Spanish overland exploration of Alta California, came down the Los Osos Valley and camped near today's Morro Bay on the eighth of September. The Franciscan friar Juan Crespi, keeping the expedition's diary, recorded that they saw a great rock in the form of a round morro.
The Spanish period reshaped the whole region. Under Mexican rule the surrounding land was carved into vast cattle and dairy ranchos, including Rancho San Bernardo, granted in eighteen forty. Those ranchos needed a way to ship goods, and that need would eventually give this quiet bay its harbor and its town.
But it all traces back to a rock that a passing sailor thought looked like a Moorish crown.
