In 1907 a man named J.M. Couch was camping near the town of New Idria, California in the Diablo mountain range.  When he woke up, the morning sunlight was bouncing off of thousands of sparkling blue crystals.  Thinking he had found an important deposit of gems, he took samples to some jewelers for identification.  They first thought the crystals were sapphires.  He eventually took some crystals to Professor George Louderback at the University of California who studied the crystals carefully and found that this was a mineral that had not been known before.  He named the mineral “Benitoite” because the crystals were found in San Benito County.