Punta de las Ritas (point of the rites), perhaps refers to some religious ceremony held upon that spot.
Rincón Point (corner point), is one of the many points of land running out from the Santa Bárbara Coast.
Point Sal, was named for Hermenegi do Sal, who was one of the prominent figures in the early history of Southern California. He was a Spanish soldier who came to this coast in 1776 with Anza and his party of colonists. Sal filled many important military offices. This point was named by Vancouver for this official, who was at one time commandante of the presidio of San Francisco, in return for signal courtesies shown by him in 1792, when he permitted Vancouver to go to the mission of Santa Clara, this being the first occasion when this part of Spanish America was penetrated by any foreigner.
Sal Si Puedes (get out if you can). Several places in the state, one in the Santa Cruz Mountains, another in Santa Bárbara County, received this name, so eloquent of the rough road that the Spaniards sometimes had to travel. Captain Argüello, in his diary of the expedition of 1821, refers to his struggles in getting out of a certain canyon in these terms: “On account of its difficult situation it was named Montaña de Maltrato y Arroyo de Sal si Puedes” (mountain of ill-treatment and creek of get out if you can).
Santa Inez (St. Agnes), is the name of a river in Santa Bárbara County which rises in the coast range and falls into the Pacific Ocean about ten miles north of Cape Conception. The town of the same name is situated on this river. The Mission Santa Inez was founded September 17, 1804, by Padres Tapis, Calzada and Gutierrez. It flourished for a time, but was greatly damaged by an earthquake in 1812, was rebuilt and damaged again by the Indians in the revolt of 1824, and its partially ruined buildings still remain to tell of a vanished past. Its patroness, St. Agnes, was one of the four great virgin martyrs of the Latin Church. She was a Roman maiden of great beauty, and was condemned to death by the sword, by the Prefect Sempronius, in revenge for her refusal to marry his son, on the ground that she was “already affianced to a husband whom she loved, meaning Jesus.” Before causing her death Sempronius attempted to procure her dishonor by having her conveyed to a house of infamy, “but when she prayed to Christ that she might not be dishonored, she saw before her a shining white garment which she put on with joy, and the room was filled with great light.”
Santa María (St. Mary), so-named in honor of the mother of Christ, is in Santa Bárbara County, near the Santa María River.
MISSION OF SANTA INEZ, FOUNDED IN 1804.
“Its patron saint is St. Agnes, one of the four great virgin martyrs of the Latin Church.”