Words and Music: John Malcolm Penn - ©Radio Flyer Music
For more information: [email protected]

Not much here either then or now, just a clean well on the Anza trail. Now that the Yuha well was right smack-dab in the middle of a rest area on an interstate highway is highly unlikely but it was nearby. Anza’s expeditions would have navigated the dry streambeds as the easiest passage and to look for areas of dense foliage or trees that combined with moist soil, could be a well site. The first Anza expedition had 21 soldiers, 5 mule packers, 1 interpreter, a carpenter and 2 personal servants. It also included a courier, 2 Franciscan friars and Sebastian Tarabal, a Baja California Indian who had just walked to Sonora from Mission San Gabriel (near Los Angles) in California. Juan Bautista de Anza did not travel light.
Many wells in the region had high levels of arsenic and were unfit for consumption. A common test was to have an animal drink first and wait and see what happens.

SHL 1008 YUHA WELL - Known as Santa Rosa de Las Lajas (Flat Rocks), this site was used on March 8, 1774 by the Anza Exploring Expedition, opening the land route from Sonora, Mexico, to Alta California. On December 11 to 15, 1775, the three divisions of Anza's colonizing expedition used this first good watering spot beyond the Colorado River on the way from Sonora to San Francisco.
Location: Eastbound Sunbeam Roadside Rest Area, between Drew and Forrester Rds (P.M. R31.3), on I-8 near Seeley
GPS Coordinates: 32.46.411N – 115.40.210W

Lyrics:
YUHA WELL
Chorus - Yuha, Yuha, we're going to the Yuha well. (2x)

Juan Bautista de Anza, over 200 years ago
Ran the first expedition, first to the Yuha well

Juan Bautista de Anza, in 1774
Named this place in the Valley, Santa Rosa de las Lejas

Chorus

Many sources in the desert, had water unsafe to use
So there was a test they used to make, from an animal’s point of view

Take a horse a mule or oxen, when you reached an untested well
And at the uncertain water, and let him drink his fill

You'd wait for 24 hours, to see if the animal fell
If the critter kept his health, you knew you had a good well