Captain Juan Bautista de Anza , after forging the first overland route from Monterey , California to San Francisco Bay , explored the peninsula and selected the sites for Mission San Francisco de Asís ( '' Mission Dolores '' ) and the Presidio of San Francisco . De Anza returned to Monterey via the Cañada de San Andrés and camped on the banks of San Mateo Creek on March 29 , 1776 . In de Anza 's diary on March 29 , 1776 , he wrote : " Night having fallen , at a quarter past six I went down to the arroyo of San Andreas and to another , that of San Matheo , where it descends to empty into the estuary ... " Originally a small natural sag pond , the lake was expanded by the construction of a 100 foot high earth dam in 1868 . The dam survived the 1906 earthquake despite the fact that the fault runs directly under the dam
1906 earthquake
1906 San Francisco earthquake
San Andreas Lake