Tiburcio Vásquez was a Californio bandido who was active in California from 1854 to 1874. The Vasquez Rocks, 40 miles (64 km) north of Los Angeles, were one of his many hideouts and are named after him.
The Battle of La Mesa was the final battle of the California Campaign during the Mexican–American War, occurring on January 9, 1847, in present-day Vernon, California, the day after the Battle of Rio San Gabriel. The battle was a victory for the United States Army under Commodore Robert F. Stockton and General Stephen Watts Kearny.
Juan Bautista Valentín Alvarado y Vallejo usually known as Juan Bautista Alvarado, was a Californio politician that served as Governor of Alta California from 1837 to 1842. Prior to his term as governor, Alvarado briefly led a movement for independence of Alta California from 1836 to 1837, in which he successfully deposed interim governor Nicolás Gutiérrez, declared independence, and created a new flag and constitution, before negotiating an agreement with the Mexican government resulting in his recognition as governor and the end of the independence movement.
Mentryville was an oil drilling town in the Santa Susana Mountains in Los Angeles County, California, USA. It was started by Charles Alexander Mentry in the 1870s around the newly discovered oil reserves in that area. The first oil strike was on September 26, 1876. The town is located at the terminus of Pico Canyon Road, four miles west of the Lyons Avenue exit from I-5 in Santa Clarita. It is currently a part of Stevenson Ranch.
Well No. 4, Pico Canyon Oilfield, located about seven miles (11 km) west of Newhall, California, in the Santa Susana Mountains, was the first commercially successful oil well in the Western United States and is considered the birthplace of California's oil industry. Drilled in 1876, it turned nearby Newhall into a boomtown and also spawned a smaller boomtown called Mentryville adjacent to the drilling site. Well No. 4 continued in operation for 114 years until it was capped in 1990. The site was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966, and the Mentryville ghost town is now open to the public as a historic park.
Juan Flores was a 19th-century Californio bandit who, with Pancho Daniel, led an outlaw gang known as "las Manillas" and later as the Flores Daniel Gang, throughout Southern California during 1856-1857. Although regarded by historians as a thief and outlaw, Flores was considered among Mexican-Americans as a folk hero akin to Jesse James and who was thought of as a defender against vigilante movements in the years following the American settlement of California and its incorporation into the United States. However, the activities of Flores and other insurrectos such as Salomon Pico and Joaquín Murrieta against American and foreign-born settlers not only created long-lasting suspicion and hostility towards Mexican-Americans but also divided the traditional Spanish class structures of the Californios and the poorer peasants as well.
The San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner's Department (SBSD) serves San Bernardino County, California, which is geographically the largest county in the continental United States and is headquartered in San Bernardino. SBSD provides law enforcement services to the unincorporated areas of the county and contract law enforcement services to 14 of the county's cities, including Rancho Cucamonga and Chino Hills, serving a total of 1,029,466 of the county's 2 million residents. The department also operates the county jail system, provides marshal services for the county superior courts, and has other specialized divisions to serve the citizens of San Bernardino County.
The History of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department began with its founding in 1850 as the first professional police force in the Los Angeles area.
Jack Powers, whose real name was John A. Power, was an Irish-born American outlaw who emigrated to New York as a child and later served as a volunteer soldier in the Mexican–American War in the garrison of Santa Barbara, California. During the California Gold Rush, he was a well-known professional gambler and a famed horseman in the gold camps as well as in San Francisco, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles.
Tomas Avila Sanchez , soldier, sheriff and public official, was on the Los Angeles County, California, Board of Supervisors and was a member of the Los Angeles Common Council, the legislative branch of the city.
Salomón María Simeon Pico was a Californio, a cousin of former governor Pío Pico, who led a bandit band in the early years following the Mexican–American War in the counties of the central coast of California. Pico was considered by some Californios to be a patriot who opposed the American conquest of Alta California and its subsequent incorporation into the United States. He was hated for his banditry by the newly arrived Americans but protected by some Californios as a defender of his people.
El Cariso is an unincorporated community in Riverside County, California. It lies along the Ortega Highway, just west of where it crosses the crest of the Santa Ana Mountains a few miles southwest of Lake Elsinore. It lies within the Trabuco District of the Cleveland National Forest. El Cariso Campground is north of the town across the highway from the El Cariso Fire Station.
Tom McCauley, better known by his alias James Henry or Jim Henry, was one of the many California Gold Rush criminals later a leader of the Mason Henry Gang.
Bethel Coopwood (1827–1907) was born in Alabama, and moved to Texas and was a soldier in the Mexican–American War and an officer in the Confederate Army in the American Civil War. He was a lawyer, judge, and later a historian.
James R. Barton was the second sheriff of Los Angeles County, California, and the first to die in office, in the line of duty.
Pancho Daniel (?–1858) was a Californio bandit, leader of the Flores Daniel Gang who was lynched in November 1858 while awaiting trial for his involvement in the murder of Los Angeles County Sheriff James R. Barton.
Flores Daniel Gang, was an outlaw gang also known as "las Manillas", throughout Southern California during 1856-1857. Californio's Juan Flores and Pancho Daniel. Contemporary newspaper accounts of las Manillas all reported that the leader of las Manillas was originally Pancho Daniel, but that Juan Flores assumed the leadership role after Daniel was injured in the Barton ambush. According to the account of Harris Newmark, Flores had been sent to prison for horse-stealing and was just another member of the gang.
Montgomery House was a popular hotel and saloon in 1850s Los Angeles, California.
The Old Maizeland School also called the Rivera School was designated a California Historic Landmark (No.729) on April 8, 1960. The Old Maizeland School was built in 1868 in what is today Pico Rivera, California, by James C. Shugg. James C. Shugg had five children: Alydia Caroline Shugg Gooch (1854–1938), Joannah Shugg Story (1857–1938), Thomas Shugg (1859–1902), Martha Jane Shugg Allison(1862–1946) and William E. Shugg (1863–1929). James C. Shugg and his wife, Esther Caroline Graham Shugg (1835–1908), wanted each child to have a good education and built the school on his land. For 27 years it served as the School house in what was called the Rivera District, at 8910 East Shugg Lane, now called Slauson Avenue. The pioneers used the Rivera School District school house to teach their children. In 1896, being too small for teaching now, it was sold, moved to a nearby farm of Ablbert McDonald and use as storage shed. In 1950 the School house was seen as Historical building and move to the Rivera School District Grounds and restored to be a School museum. The museum idea did not work and a year later the school was put up for sale.
Juan Brown (1799-1859), nickname Juan Flaco, known as the Paul Revere of California, rode from Los Angeles to San Francisco California in four days, 52 hours, in 1846, during the Mexican–American War. Juan "Flaco" Brown was sent by Captain Archibald H. Gillespie at Fort Hill to due the Siege of Los Angeles, started on September 22, 1846. United States Army Troops were trapped in Pueblo de Los Ángeles, Alta California by José María Flores men. Juan "Flaco" Brown took word to Commodore Robert F. Stockton in San Francisco of the serious trouble the Gillespie's troops in Los Angeles were in.
