Jacalitos Creek formerly known as Arroyo de Jacelitos (Creek of Little Huts), is a creek in

Fresno County, California Fresno County (), officially the County of Fresno, is a county located in the central portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 1,008,654. The county seat is Fresno, the fifth-most popu ...

. William N. Abeloe, Mildred Brooke Hoover, H. E. Rensch, E. G. Rensch, Historic spots in California, 3rd Edition, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1966, p. 89
/ref> Its source is 0.96 km (0.6 mi) north of

Andrews Peak The Destination Nunataks () are a group of peaks and nunataks, long and wide, rising to at Pyramid Peak and including Sphinx Peak, Andrews Peak, Mummy Ridge, and unnamed nunataks to the northwest, located in northeast Evans Névé, northwest o ...

, in the

Diablo Range The Diablo Range is a mountain range in the California Coast Ranges subdivision of the Pacific Coast Ranges in northern California, United States. It stretches from the eastern San Francisco Bay Area at its northern end to the Salinas Valley a ...

. From there it runs east then northeast between the Jacalitos Hills and the Kreyenhagen Hills, then passes across Pleasant Valley to its confluence with Los Gatos Creek 4.2 km (2.6 mi) south of Coalinga Nose.

History

Jacalitos Creek, originally known as El Arroyo de Jacelitos, it was the location of watering places on

El Camino Viejo El Camino Viejo a Los Ángeles (), also known as El Camino Viejo and the Old Los Angeles Trail, was the oldest north-south trail in the interior of Spanish colonial Las Californias (1769–1822) and Mexican Alta California (1822–1848), present d ...

, between Los Gatos Creek to the north and

Zapato Chino Creek Zapato Chino Creek formerly known both as Arroyo de Las Polvarduras (Creek of the Dust Clouds) and Arroyo de Zapata Chino (Chinese Shoe Creek), is a creek in Fresno County, California. Its source is in Zapato Chino Canyon on the east slope of M ...

to the south. Jacalitos is derived from a Spanish word,

jacal The jacal (; Mexican Spanish from Nahuatl ''xacalli'' contraction of ''xamitl calli''; literally "hut") is an adobe-style housing structure historically found throughout parts of the Southwestern United States and Mexico. This type of structure w ...

, meaning a hut with a thatched roof and walls consisting of thin stakes driven into the ground close together and plastered with mud. Modified with the ending -ito, gives it the meaning "little huts".Jacal
from merriam-webster.com accessed November 21, 2019

References

Rivers of Fresno County, California Diablo Range Geography of the San Joaquin Valley El Camino Viejo Rivers of Northern California {{California-river-stub