Orestimba Creek, originally Arroyo de Orestimba (Orestimba, a

Yokutsan Yokuts, formerly known as Mariposa, is an endangered language spoken in the interior of Northern and Central California in and around the San Joaquin Valley by the Yokuts people. The speakers of Yokuts were severely affected by disease, mission ...

word for "meeting place") is a

tributary A tributary, or an ''affluent'', is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream (''main stem'' or ''"parent"''), river, or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries, and the main stem river into which they ...

of the

San Joaquin River The San Joaquin River ( ; ) is the longest river of Central California. The long river starts in the high Sierra Nevada and flows through the rich agricultural region of the northern San Joaquin Valley before reaching Suisun Bay, San Francis ...

draining eastern slopes of part of 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 ...

within the

San Joaquin Valley The San Joaquin Valley ( ; Spanish language in California, Spanish: ''Valle de San Joaquín'') is the southern half of California's Central Valley (California), Central Valley. Famed as a major breadbasket, the San Joaquin Valley is an importa ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. The Creek has its source at the confluence of the north and south forks of Orestimba Creek and its mouth at the San Joaquin River, is about 7 1/2 miles north of

Newman Newman is a surname of Germanic Anglo-Saxon origins. Newman is the modern English form of the name used in Great Britain and among people of British ancestry around the world (as is 'Numan'), while Neumann (with variant spellings) is used in Ger ...

Stanislaus County Stanislaus County ( ; ) is a county located in the San Joaquin Valley of the U.S. state of California. As of 2023, its estimated population is 564,404. The county seat is Modesto. Stanislaus County makes up the Modesto metropolitan statistic ...

.U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data
The National Map
, accessed October 31, 2011

History

Arroyo Orestimba was a watering place 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 ...

in the

and was the primary water source for

Rancho Orestimba y Las Garzas Rancho Orestimba y Las Garzas (Meetingplace and the Herons) was a Ranchos of California, Mexican land grant in present-day Stanislaus County, California, Stanislaus County and Merced County, California given in 1844 by Governor Manuel Micheltoren ...

near its northern boundary. The ranch house of Rancho Orestimba y las Garzas, was built above the sycamore grove on Arroyo de Orestimba. Mildred Brooke Hoover, Douglas E. Kyle, Historic Spots in California, Stanford University Press, 2002, p.517
/ref>

References

{{reflist

External links

Henry W. Coe State Park California Water Indicators Portal: Orestimba Creek watershed
Rivers of Stanislaus County, California Tributaries of the San Joaquin River Diablo Range Geography of the San Joaquin Valley El Camino Viejo Rivers of Northern California