the 1775-76 Anza Colonizing Expedition, which traveled as far north as San Francisco Bay. Garcés also crossed the Mojave Desert on the Mohave Trail and then the Old Tejon Pass and explored the southern San Joaquin Valley in 1776. The eastern part of the route Garcés took from the Colorado River across the Mojave Desert is known to four-wheel-drive adventurers today as the Mojave Road. Death In 1779–81 Garcés and Juan Díaz established two mission churches (Mission Puerto de Purísima Concepción and Mission San Pedro y San Pablo de Bicuñer) on the lower Colorado River at Yuma Crossing, as part of a new pueblo (secular settlement), in the homeland of the Quechan peoples (Yuma or Kwítsaín). Garcés tried to keep peace between all parties. The formerly peaceful rapport with the Quechan was lost due to Spanish settlers allegedly violating the treaty with the native peoples, resulting in the losses of crops and farmlands. In July 1781, Garcés, Díaz and their fellow friars were among those killed in a violent uprising at the Mission San Pedro y San Pablo de Bicuñer, known as the Yuma Uprising and Yuma Revolt. Garcés' body was later reinterred at Mission San Pedro y San Pablo del Tubutama. He and the other friars killed at those missions are considered martyrs by the Catholic Church. Legacy El Garces Hotel The El Garces Hotel, named in Francisco Garcés' honor, is the historic 1908 Santa Fe Railroad station and Harvey House hotel 'oasis' located in the City of Needles. It is located in eastern California above the Colorado River, a site Garcés passed through during the 1776 Anza expedition. The El Garces Hotel was built by the Santa Fe Railroad under contract with the Fred Harvey Company. It is designed in an elegant Neoclassical and Beaux-Arts style, and the El Garces was considered the "Crown Jewel" of the entire Fred Harvey chain. National Forest Garces National Forest was established by the U.S. Forest Service in southern Arizona on July 1, 1908 with from portions of Baboquivari, Tumacacori and Huachuca National Forests. The name was discontinued in 1911 when it was combined with Coronado National Forest. Bakersfield The first Tejon Pass (original) between the Mojave Desert (and New Spain) over the Tehachapi Mountains to the southern San Joaquin Valley floor (future site of Bakersfield), California, had been discovered by Garcés in 1776, eastward from the Anza Colonizing Expedition route. Therefore,