Growing up in California, I’m quite used to the “bell” signs along highways, marking the route of the “King’s Highway” where missionaries once plodded piously along from one mission to the next.
Except, really, not so much, since the network was largely reinvented in the first few decades of the 20th Century by the automobile and tourism industry — though the marking “El Camino Real” with bells was also quite a boon for a key organizer’s husband, who owned the only bell foundry west of the Mississippi.
How El Camino Real, California’s ‘Royal Road,’ Was Invented
Mission bells along Highway 101 imply that motorists’ tires trace the same path as missionaries’ sandals. But much of El Camino Real’s story is imagined.
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