Old Tejon Pass

Old Tejon Pass
Puerto el Tejon
Old Tejon Pass Tejon Pass (Kern County)
Elevation	5,285 feet (1,611 m)
Traversed by	unpaved road
Location	Kern County, California
Range	Tehachapi Mountains
Coordinates	34°59′21″N 118°32′43″W / 34.98917°N 118.54528°W / 34.98917; -118.54528Coordinates: 34°59′21″N 118°32′43″W / 34.98917°N 118.54528°W / 34.98917; -118.54528
Topo map	Liebre Twins, CA

The Old Tejon Pass (originally Tejon Pass), is a mountain pass in the Tehachapi Mountains linking Southern and Central California. The pass is located in Kern County, California, fifteen miles to the northeast of the present Tejon Pass. It runs at the top of a divide between a point about five miles east of the Rancho Tejon boundary in Tejon Creek Canyon, and Cottonwood Creek Canyon north of Antelope Valley. It lies at an elevation of 5,285 feet (1,611 m), and sits between two peaks of 5,491 feet (1,674 m) (to the west) and 5,566 feet (1,697 m) (to the east).

The ancient native trail which utilized what is now known as the Old Tejon Pass was found and explored in 1772 by Spanish explorer Pedro Fages. The pass was used in 1776 by missionary explorer, padre Francisco Garcés. In 1806, Lt. Francisco Ruiz named it Tejon Pass while on an expedition into the San Joaquin Valley. Ruiz also named Tejon Canyon and Tejon Creek, all referencing the dead badger (or tejón) he had found at the canyon mouth.

In early 1827, the first overland American exploratory journey to California, led by Jedediah Smith, used the pass to move northwest from Antelope Valley into San Joaquin Valley, led by Native American guides familiar with the pass.

Rancho El Tejón, a large 1843 Mexican land grant in the Tehachapi Mountains, was headquartered below the pass along Tejon Creek. Eventually, a road running straight north (from Elizabeth Lake), across westernmost Antelope Valley, and then over this Tejon Pass evolved. This route to the pass diverted from the El Camino Viejo at Elisabeth Lake, and from 1849 to before 1854 it was the main road connecting the southern part of the state to the trail along the eastern side of the San Joaquin Valley to the goldfields to the north.