Page 19 - 2025-2026 Travel Guide to California

POP
CULTURE
ICONS
California has long been embedded in the popular culture of the USA
and, indeed, much of the world. Among the pop culture favorites created
in California are the Frisbee, the Barbie Doll, skateboards, fortune cookies
and denim jeans.
Native cultures. Of necessity, the Native Ameri-
cans started over in a bewildering new world.
In 1821, Mexico, with its remote northernmost
province, Alta California, wrenched itself free of
the Spanish Empire. The missions were secular-
ized by the Mexican government starting in 1834
leading to their decline and neglect. Their build-
ings moldered, their pioneering vineyards and
olive groves were eventually overgrown and for-
gotten. Not until the 20th century were the
missions restored and revived. Many flourish
today as redoubts of history and contemporary
worship, handsome, evocative reminders of the
first major European presence.
THE GASLAMP QUARTER in
San Diego, above; Mission San
Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo,
also known as the Carmel
Mission, left; a souvenir from
the Panama Pacific International
Exposition of 1915, below;
Alcatraz Penitentiary and
Alcatraz Island in San Francisco,
opposite.
The Gold Rush
Alta California grew steadily, shaped by its relative
isolation. That changed on January 24, 1848, with
the discovery of gold on the American River. The
California Gold Rush, beginning in earnest in
1849, gave fortune-seekers a second—some said a
last—chance to make good. Hundreds of thousands
of newcomers—many from Europe, Asia, Latin
America and Africa—globalized California in a
hurry. The Mexican descendants of Spanish set-
tlers—the Californios, with their sprawling
ranchos and lives attuned to the slow turning of
the seasons—were swept aside, left to start over.
Many 49ers stayed on and found another
kind of gold: richly productive new lives in a
place where beginning afresh—personally,
financially, even spiritually—was already a
common rite of passage. In 1850, pried loose by
the U.S. victory in the Mexican War and accel-
erated by the Gold Rush, California became the
31st state of the United States. New Californians
brought the new Golden State into being,
plowing its fields, founding its great universi-
ties, building its cities.
2025-26 TRAVEL GUIDE TO CALIFORNIA 17