Pleito (quarrel, argument, lawsuit). This place is in Monterey County. It has not been possible to ascertain the application of its name.
Potrero (pasture). There were many potreros scattered about the state.
Puentes (bridges). This place, two leagues from the San Lorenzo River, was reached by the Portolá, party October 18, 1769, and the reason for its naming is explained by Miguel Costansó: “These canyons contained running water in very deep ditches, over which it was necessary to lay bridges of logs, covered with earth and bundles of sticks, so that the pack animals could cross. The place was called Las Puentes.”
San Benito (St. Benedict), was named in honor of the founder of the great order of Benedictines. San Benito Creek was named in 1772 by Father Crespi, and the name was eventually applied to the county. The town of San Benito is on the Salinas River, sixty miles southeast of Monterey. It is said of St. Benedict that he became a hermit at the age of fifteen and fled to the wilderness, where he lived on bread and water. While there he was tempted by the remembrance of a beautiful woman he had seen in Rome, and to overcome his wish to see her again “he flung himself into a thicket of briers and thorns, and rolled himself therein until he was torn and bleeding. At the monastery of Subiaco they show roses, said to have been propagated from these briers.”
San Lucas (St. Luke), is in Monterey County, sixty miles southeast of Salinas. St. Luke was the disciple of Paul, who speaks of him as “Luke, the beloved physician,” but tradition reports him to have been an artist, and that he always carried with him two portraits, one of the Saviour and the other of Mary. Doubtless for this reason he is regarded as the patron of artists and academies of art.
Sur (south). Point Sur (south point), on the coast south of Monterey, is a bold promontory where a light-house was placed by the government, in consequence of the frequent occurrence of shipwrecks there. The Sur River runs through a region remarkable for the wild picturesqueness of its scenery, and for the strange tales told of happenings among its early inhabitants.
Toro (bull), is the name of a ranch near Monterey, said to have been so-called after a wild bull.
Tres Pinos (three pines), a place in San Benito County, one hundred miles southeast of San Francisco. Postmaster Black, of Tres Pinos, gives us the following history of the naming of this place: “The name was originally applied to what is now known as Paicines, but when the railroad came to this place they appropriated the name of Tres Pinos, hence it has no significance as applied to this town. The name was given the stopping-place now known as Paicines because of three pines alleged to have grown on the banks of the Tres Pinos creek near that place. Paicines, then Tres Pinos, was the scene of the Vásquez raid and murders in the early ’70’s.”
Uvas (grapes), the name of a town and creek in the Santa Cruz Mountains, no doubt so-called from the abundance of wild grapes found in that locality.