Historic Murrieta Memorial Stone Smashed By Road Crews

MURRIETA, CA — The rub in the Clinton Keith Road Extension Project was a large boulder known locally as the "Leonard Smohl Memorial Rock." The boulder, roughly the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, sat above the T intersection at Briggs Road and Los Alamos Road. It bore the scars of historic and prehistoric use and held the emblem of a USGS survey marker, according to photographs and archaeological reports.

That boulder was demolished on June 17 by a crew hired to widen Briggs Road as part of the extension project. Local historians want to know why archaeologists failed to record its significance.

It may be too late for that now, as the resource is wholly lost, according to Mark Lancaster, director of the County of Riverside Transportation Department. Archaeological due diligence — including surveying the land in question — was completed before construction crews demolished the stone. It appears archaeologists may have missed the boulder's historical significance.

Phase 4 of the Clinton Keith Road extension, between Leon Road and state Route 79, is still about a year from completion, but local historians Rebecca Farnbach and Jeffery Harmon are not about to let progress happen before the county pays homage to the past.

News of the stone's destruction spread across local Facebook groups following June 17. Reacting to the social media outcry, the County of Riverside Transportation Department sent road workers to comb through the rubble in search of historical carvings, only mentioned as "graffiti" by archaeologists who surveyed the area in both 2014 and 2018.

"We are literally picking up the pieces of history," Lancaster said.

Murrieta's chief historian Jeffery Harmon and Temecula's chief historian Rebecca Farnbach are attempting to learn what can be done, hoping this sort of obliteration of history will not happen again.

The boulder in question stood witness to history. The stone bore evidence of both ground stone indentations from a Luiseño garden site in the Adobe Springs village. It held two historical etchings from French Valley's first homestead residents before they set off to fight overseas in World War I.

Historians took many photos of the stone's significant historic etchings. Resident and nearby neighbor Ann Borel shared photographs of the stone with Patch.

One of the markings was carved by founding pioneer resident Leonard Overton Smohl between 1914 and 1918, underscored by a backward swastika, a controversial marking to modern eyes. This glyph, however, was a prehistoric symbol of peace, local historians say.

The significance of the historic carvings bearing dates of 1890 and 1918 was not mentioned by archaeologists who considered the mark "graffiti" in their report.

Surveying Leonard Smohl Memorial Rock

Hemet-based Applied Earthworks conducted archaeological surveys for the Clinton Keith Extension Project.

In 2014, archaeologists John Eddy and Susan Goldberg signed off on the study and subsequent surveys, including the boulder, noted as CA RIV 11585 in the reports. In the study, Eddy stated that the visibility of the "stone marker" was high and 360 degrees around, and the boulder was set atop a small hill.

Ten photographs of the stone were taken at that time, outcroppings 1 and 2, which were "two milling slicks on the bedrock exposures." Eddy also mentions that there were disturbances to the site in the way of graffiti and some trash and boulder piles nearby, however, there are no known photographs of those areas.

In 2018, Applied Earthworks conducted a secondary survey of CA RIV 11585 as a follow-up to its report, Historic Properties Treatment Report: Six Bedrock Mills Within The Potential Adobe Springs Archaeological District.

Archaeologists photo-mapped the remaining outcroppings at that time, capturing the Smohl etching.

In their report, archaeologists mentioned the stone had been "vandalized recently with graffiti etched into one of the surfaces." The marking they photographed on the western face of the rock, considered "recent," bore Smohl's name and the 1918 date.

There was no recommendation for listing the stone in the National Register of Historic Places for Riverside County.

What The Archaeologists Missed With CA RIV 11585

The fact that the archaeologists overlooked the significance of the boulder's markings in 2018 was a travesty, according to local historians.

"Those marks were not new in 2018. They were new in 1918," Harmon told Patch. There were two dates etched in the stone: one, a marking by Leonard Smohl, one of the founding residents of French Valley and Murrieta, and the second by Clifford Aaron Garinger, a pioneer resident who carved his initials C.A.G. and birthdate Sept. 9, 1890, into the stone.

This was no ordinary boulder, according to many who've driven past the T intersection at Briggs Road and Los Alamos Road.

The boulder served as a "dividing line between the county and Murrieta land," Harmon said.

It bore a U.S. Geological Survey marker that was bolted to its surface.

"We understand there is a fine of $250 for anyone who removes a USGS tag like the one from the rock," Harmon said as he discussed the inscriptions, the people who wrote them and what they mean to area residents.

"Leonard Overton Smohl was a grown man in about 1918 when he set out to fight in World War I," Harmon said. "He used small, careful handwriting as he carved his name: L. Smohl Murrieta, Cal, into the stone, underlined with that reverse swastika peace symbol. This was an ancient symbol of peace. It may have been a prayer for peace as he marched off to war."

Similarly, Clifford Aaron Garinger may have also paid homage to his wife's birthday in his etching, Harmon said.

Harmon has studied the differences between the men who lived in the area from the same period around the turn of the century (1880-1914) to the early 20th century (1914-1945).

"Clifford's signature was large and boisterous," Harmon said. "He was a teenager, drafted at the same time as Leonard, and concerned at leaving. In the end, Clifford had a family to care for, and he made arrangements to stay."

Smohl went on to fight in Europe, and ultimately his unit was hit by a German gas attack, leaving him with respiratory problems for years after. He died in February of 1962 and is buried in Murrieta's Laurel Cemetery.

"By the year 2000, all that remained of the pioneer history were the two names on a rock at the end of Los Alamos Road, but now that rock is gone too," Harmon said.

"True, we didn't have [the rock] designated as a historical site," Harmon said. "It was on land under the jurisdiction of the County of Riverside and not on the areas watched by either the Temecula Valley or Murrieta Valley historical societies."

Meanwhile, the 4th phase of the Clinton Keith Extension Project is expected to wrap up in August 2023.

Lancaster said he plans on working to find ways to include historical societies during future projects to honor history while building for the future.

The Leonard Smohl Memorial Rock, now rubble, is a reminder that progress will not be denied.