My dad and his brothers would sometimes take off and go up to the Anza area and go hunting. Hunting for Gold that is. It seems that back in the 1880's when Palm Springs was still a small little pit stop in the dessert and Indio was the City of the furture. Gold was discovered in the La Quinta Ridge area in 1879. This area is now part of Arnold Palmer's Golf Empire. It is also known as Palm Canyon and is a part of the Anza Borrego Desert.
It was decided that since the area ws so close to the bottom of the Oak Hills area which just North of the Anza Borrego dessert, the gold would be shipped up over the mountain to Anza, then down what is present day highway 74 to Hemet. From there it would be shipped on in to LA on the Santa Fe Railroad.
If you have ever been down the back side of San Jacinto, you know that the road is steep, with lot of curves and a drop off of over 3,000 feet in several areas. Imagine what the road was like in the 1890's, unpaved, muddy & snowy in the winter time and bone dry in the summer time. Because of the terrain several drafts of horses, or mules would be employed just to bring one wagon up the steep road.