After the discovery of Alta California, the Spanish Crown charged the first Franciscan friars to enter into the New World through Lower Baja, with a succession of conquistadors, explorers, and soldiers, on a trail called El Camino Real or �The Royal Road.� The settlement began in 1769 at Mission San Diego de Alcal�, a new port and military presidio with buildings of mud, brushwood, and tule grass. Fr. Jun�pero Serra, the legendary mission presidente and founding father of nine missions, traveled along a worn path lined today by symbolic bell markers leading to many remarkable, modern cities. After 1772, settlements were spread to California�s central coast region, filling with native neophytes who became the residents and builders of all mission settlements. The Spanish missions had brought dramatic changes to California�s landscape and forged the underpinnings of its earliest history, founded serendipitously with the American Revolution and birth of the United States.