Camino

By Deane Barker • • tags: geography, spanish •

Definition: Spanish for “road” or “path”

Why I Looked It Up

I spent a few days in Southern California. The word is used often in the area to refer to place names.

In particular, many highways are designated as part of “El Camino Real,” which was a road system connecting the Spanish missions in the region throughout the 1600s to the 1800s. The phrase literally means “the royal road” or “the king’s road” and referred to any road under the jurisdiction of the Spanish King.

Then, of course, there’s the Chevrolet El Camino truck that was popular in the 60s, 70s, and 80s.

Links to this – Broadway: A History of New York City in Thirteen Miles July 25, 2024
This is a lovely history of New York City, focused down to a single street. It follows Broadway north from the southern tip of Manhattan, mile by mile, and talks about the history of the city as the street moved northward. Along the way, it has random vignettes of things that happened on the...