By J. Baca Romero

Doña Maria de San Juan Baca:  Dona Maria's husband was
Captain Marcos Baca de Padilla who served in the United States
Cavalry USA during the Civil War 1861 -1865.

They were Spanish speaking Americans;
schools were taught in the Spanish language, politics,
all exchanges were and continued to be in the Spanish language.

They came by wagons, from Belen, New Mexico USA, to settle in
an area on the "Coloradito" the little Colorado River, there were
about thirty Hispanic families already settled there.

Don Jose Maria Saavedra
and his son were the founders and the first
family to settle in this city.

The town was called San Juan by all, and the citizens wanted to make
the name official.  They had previously applied to the
US Postal Service to officially name their town,
however the applications were ignored numerous times.

The applications were submitted in the Spanish language,
and the US post master chose to ignore the application because
it was in the Spanish language. (this was reported in the
Apache County newspaper).
 

After numerous attempts, the Spanish speaking settlers made
application again to the United States Post Master for
a mail route.  The settlers wanted to name their city after
Doña Maria de San Juan Baca and to dedicate the settlement to
San Juan Bautista as its Patron Saint.

When the US postal authorities granted the application, they
ordered that San Juan be called St. Johns.

An old newspaper clipping from Apache Country
newspaper reads that the
US Postmaster said:

"We'll show those "Mexicans" which country they are in."

And so the town was called St. Johns instead of the proper
name it should be "San Juan".

(Note:  Hispanics who founded and settled the towns in this area
were American (USA), solid outstanding Americans as history has
shown.  They were Spanish speaking Americans.

To this day the city is called San Juan by many in the
White Mountain area and the Southwest.

Also to this day, San Juan Bautista Day is celebrated each year,
with a parade in the San Juan area, this is celebrated on
June 22nd of each year.

The ancestors of these Spanish speaking American pioneers
had donated funds to the Continental Army & George Washington
during the American War against England.

In the thousands upon thousands of Hispanic soldiers fought and were allied
with George Washington in the American Revolution.

Also, most of the Hispanic men who settled in the White Mountain
area of Arizona were returning from the battles of the
United States Civil War  Union side.

They were Americans of Hispanic Heritage, and spoke the
Spanish language.  Their ancestry goes back to the
Spanish Speaking pilgrims, to the "Oñate families".in the
1500's in New Mexico.

And as history has shown many of their descendants went on as
they did to serve our country the USA with honor and distinction.

When the Declaration of Independence was signed (1776) they
were still trying to decide what language to speak. Throughout the USA
we were already speaking the Spanish language centuries years prior to
1776 and up to the present time.