grants were Rancho San Joaquin (1837) and Rancho Lomas de Santiago (1846). Portions of all later became part of the Irvine Ranch. A well-known massacre of Native Americans occurred in 1831, in present-day Black Star Canyon, which was called Cañada de los Indios (Indian Canyon) in Spanish. The retaliation was one in a series against local Tongva (Gabrielino) Native Americans taking horses from the Mexican ranchos. A party of American fur trappers set out to retrieve stolen horses. They followed hoofprints into Cañada de los Indios, came upon a Tongva village, massacred the native residents, and took the remaining horses. Though some managed to escape, many Indians were killed in the massacre. The village's site is designated as California Historical Landmark #217. American era Mining In 1877, two prospectors, Hank Smith and William Curry, discovered silver in present-day Silverado Canyon. Several mines immediately sprang up in the area, the largest of which was known as the Blue Light Mine. During this period, the town of Silverado rose at the confluence of Silverado Creek and Santiago Creek and the boom continued for over three years. Although the height of the mining was in the three or four years following the discovery of silver, smaller-scale mining continued for decades after the initial boom had ended. The last commercial operations at the Blue Light Mine ceased in the 1940s. The mine has continued to issue small amounts of toxic tailings, including arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury, remediation for which the Trabuco Ranger District of the Cleveland National Forest began toxic cleanup in 2008. Modjeska House In 1883 Polish actress Helena Modjeska purchased the Pleasant family's homestead ranch in Santiago Canyon near the mouth of Harding Creek, the Santiago's first large tributary. She commissioned the renowned New York architect Stanford White to design a country manor house, expanding the Pleasant's house into the landmark Modjeska House in the Arden gardens, within present-day Modjeska Canyon. She lived on the Arden estate, between her European and American theatre season tours, until 1906, and died in 1909. Modjeska Peak, rising above Santiago Creek's headwaters, was named in her honor. Water supply infrastructure Santiago Dam By the 1920s, the Orange/Anaheim/Villa Park area was a prospering agricultural region that depended on water from the Santa Ana River and Santiago Creek. Santiago Creek would unleash seasonal floods in the winter and then while becoming a trickle or completely dry in