Mud Spring, formerly called Aquaje Lodoso (muddy watering place), is a spring and historic site in the western Antelope Valley, within northern Los Angeles County, southern California.
Aquaje Lodoso was an aguaje, a watering place on the Spanish and Mexican El Camino Viejo inland north–south route in colonial Alta California. It was located between Elizabeth Lake and Cow Spring water sources.
It was also a watering place on the Old Tejon Pass road between the Antelope and San Joaquin Valleys in the 1840s and early 1850s until that road was replaced by the Stockton–Los Angeles Road, a new and easier road through Fort Tejon Pass.[2]
Stockton - Los Angeles Road[]
The Butterfield Overland Mail 1st Division had a station operating at Mud Springs, on the Stockton - Los Angeles Road.
In 1860, a correspondent of the Daily Alta California wrote an account of his travel by stagecoach to Los Angeles from San Francisco. He mentions that the Butterfield Overland Mail (1857-1861) had a station operating at Mud Springs in 1860.[3]
It was 14 miles (23 km) east from French John's Station, and 13 miles (21 km) north from Clayton's—Widow Smith's Station near San Francisquito Pass in the Sierra Pelona Mountains.[4]
Kern River Slough Station – Located 12 miles south of Gordons Ferry.
Sink of Tejon Station – Located 14 miles southwest of Kern River Slough Station.
Fort Tejon – Located 15 miles southwest of Sink of Tejon Station, north of and below the summit of Tejon Pass.
Reed's Station – Located 8 miles southeast of Fort Tejon, near, to the south of the summit of the Tejon Pass.
French John's Station – Located 14 miles east southeast of Reeds Station, in the vicinity of the mouth of Cow Springs Creek Canyon.
Mud Spring, a later station operating in 1860, 14 miles east from French Johns and 13 miles north from Clayton's Station (formerly Widow Smith's Station). [1]
