On Her Own

If your image of a senorita in the Old West is beautiful brown eyes shyly hidden behind a lace fan, then you’ve never heard of Juana Briones—a senorita who belied all the stereotypes and taught the American government a thing or two. Although her name is not widely known, and her story not often told, Briones was the kind of woman who made the West what it is today—she was a businesswoman, a landowner, a healer and a founding mother of a wild land that would become California. The state