Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo

Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo (also known under his Portuguese name João Rodrigues Cabrilho) is not entirely clear. Most believe that he was born in Portugal, but lived most of his life in the Spanish New World colonies. Others believe that he was born Spanish.

  He had  joined a few voyages of discovery and had become wealthy through gold-mining in Guatemala. In 1542 Antonio de Mendoza, the viceroy of New Spain (Mexico), asked him to explore the northern limits of New Spain's west coast.

  Cabrillo departed from Navidad (now called Acapulco) on June 27, 1542, and sailed north to Baja California. He went further along the coast, and discovered and named San Diego Bay and Santa Barbara. Although he reached Russian River, he missed Monterey Bay and San Francisco Bay (future discoverers would miss the Golden Gate as well, it was first found on the Portolá expedition of 1769, which followed the coastline by land).

  He turned back to find a place to spend the winter, and did so on San Miguel Island in the Santa Barbara Channel. Here he got into a fight with Indians, and died of the complications of a broken leg. Bartolome Ferrelo took over charge of the expedition, and decided to make a new attempt to go further north. He rounded Cape Mendocino, and headed further north, reaching Rogue River (Oregon). After some more bad weather he made it safely back to Navidad.

  In his days the Cabrillo expedition had no major impact. Spain did not make anything of its claims to California until the late 18th century, when colonization was started.

  Nowadays he is remembered as the discoverer and first explorer of the Californian coast.

The 14-foot sandstone statue of Cabrillo is the work of Portuguese sculptor Alvaro DeBree. Completed in 1939 for the San Francisco World's Fair, it was eventually relocated to Point Loma. The portrait is conjectural, there is no known likeness of the explore.