Loca­tion map for Val­lecitos Coun­ty Park.

One of the many stage stops between San­ta Fe and Los Ange­les in the 1800s was at Val­lecitos, or Lit­tle Val­ley. The native peo­ple of the val­ley called it “Hawi”— the place where tules (bul­rush­es) grow. Through the heart of Hawi runs present-day Coun­ty Road S2. The S2 fol­lows the old But­ter­field Stage­coach road, which was a route for high speed mail deliv­ery by wag­on, aver­ag­ing only 22 days for a let­ter to leave Mis­souri and arrive in Cal­i­for­nia! Long before the stage route came into being the val­ley was criss­crossed by myr­i­ad Indi­an trails.

A vis­it to Val­lecitos Coun­ty Park on any balmy sum­mer evening under a full moon will bring the open­ness of the sky right down to the val­ley floor. Moon shad­ows are faint and eerie here. They are the light­est pos­si­ble grey, indis­tin­guish­able per­haps from what are said to be ghosts in south­ern Anza-Bor­rego Desert.

The adobe sta­tion house of the But­ter­field stage.

One night in the late-1850s, the stage pulled up to the adobe sta­tion house, where trav­el­ers on their way to Bue­na Vista– now called Los Angeles–could rest. One woman was very ill when she arrived on this night and was giv­en the most com­fort­able bed to aid in her recu­per­a­tion. Sad­ly, she died before morn­ing. She was buried in a white wed­ding dress she car­ried with her, at a gravesite that may be vis­it­ed today near the sta­tion house which still stands. On moon­lit nights, some say she reap­pears in her dress in an anx­ious, pen­sive state, as if look­ing for the stage to take her to her wait­ing fiance in the gold camps of North­ern California.

The sta­tion house is host to many events, at one time Val­lecitos Days, a year­ly gath­er­ing of his­to­ri­ans and reen­ac­tors that com­mem­o­rat­ed the impor­tance of Val­lecitos to emi­grants arriv­ing in Cal­i­for­nia.  Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the event has not been held in recent years.

Val­lecitos Coun­ty Park is a pop­u­lar place for campers, eques­tri­an clubs, hik­ers, and RVers. It also attracts astron­o­my clubs, mete­or watch­ers, and astropho­tog­ra­phers because of its dark skies on moon­less nights…

(This page has been updat­ed to March, 2020.)

Ken Kramer’s won­der­ful series About San Diego fea­tured a spe­cial episode—No. 36, “Hal­loween Show”—that chron­i­cled var­i­ous haunt­ed loca­tions in San Diego.  A seg­ment about the Lady in White appears at 13:04 min­utes into the video at the pbs.org page https://www.pbs.org/video/ken-kramers-about-san-diego-episode-36-halloween-show/.

The Lady of Val­lecitos is a trag­ic sto­ry, cer­tain­ly, but for west­ward trav­el­ers more com­mon than you might think. The era of the 1850s was known for the cholera epi­dem­ic, tak­ing many lives as emi­grants head­ed west along the trails.  The epi­dem­ic was not very well under­stood at the time and death could come quick­ly; and when it came swift buri­als were the norm.  A more com­plete sto­ry of the real woman, Eileen O’Connor—if indeed her name—may emerge some­day to let her spir­it rest and in all like­li­hood help us come to know her as a  brave soul who took on the chal­lenges of her time.

Gallery below is from Val­lecitos Days 2011.  Pho­tos by Bar­bara Swanson.