Site information:

County Rd S2, 8.6 mi S of State Hwy 78

33.015142,-116.442884

Plaque information:

State plaque

Plaque text:

Box Canyon

The old road, known as the Sonora, Colorado River, or Southern Emigrant Trail and later as the Butterfield Overland Mail Route, traversed Box Canyon just east of here. On January 19, 1847, the Mormon Battalion under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Philip St. G. Cooke, using hand tools, hewed a passage through the rocky walls of the narrow gorge for their wagons and opened the first road into Southern California.

Marker placed by San Diego County Board of Supervisors and the Historical Markers Committee. Erected 1955.

Registered 9/11/1950