Equestrian Statue of Juan Bautista de Anza

This bronze statue of Captain Juan Bautista de Anza stands here as a gift from the Mexican state of Sonora to the city of San Francisco. It was presented in August of 1967 as a gesture intended to strengthen the ties between Mexico and the United States. The figure honors the Spanish military officer who, in 1776, led an epic, fifteen-hundred-mile expedition of soldiers and families from present-day Mexico to the shores of the San Francisco Bay.