by Paul R. Spitzzeri
This past Sunday’s presentation of “The Lost Community of Misión Vieja/Old Mission” covered some of the rich, deep history of a place that, to all outward appearances, looks as if there was never any such community there, but, for untold millenia, indigenous people and, more recently, Latinos and Anglos lived along the banks of the Río Hondo (Old San Gabriel River) and the San Gabriel River and in adjoining areas in the Whittier Narrows in vibrant communities.
After a land acknowledgment, noting that the native people of our region long were stewards of the Homestead site, very near which was the village of Awiinga (Awig-na), this discussion began with the remarkable geographic circumstances by which the melting snow and rain waters of the San Gabriel River often rushed down the steep, granitic slopes into the main channel and west and east forks and then into the San Gabriel Valley.
In fact, the water vanished underground through the incredible mass of rock and sand at the mouth of San Gabriel Canyon, these later giving rise to huge sand and gravel operations in what is now Azusa and Irwindale, before the surging water burst to the surface a few miles downstream near where El Monte was established. Over time, the river cut through what had been one hill system and then became two separate ranges, the Montebello and the Puente.
In the “Narrows,” between those hills, the water’s volume was such that an incredible abundance of plant and animal life existed so that the indigenous people established villages to take advantage of the plentiful resources to be had there. Father Juan Crespí, whose job on the Portolá Expedition of 1769-1770, the first Spanish incursion into California, was to identify potential mission sites so that Roman Catholic missionaries could Christianize and “civilize” the people that the prelate called “heathens.”
Effusive in his description of the wealth of plant and animal life he encountered once entering what he deemed the “San Miguel Valley,” Crespí found one site where the expedition built a puente (bridge) across San José Creek, a little west of the Homestead, but when the group traveled several miles further to the west and encountered the Narrows, he became even more enthusiastic about what he found as the San Gabriel River moved through the area.
Bearing in mind that it was the end of July and early August, when the expedition was moving through the area, there was still enough water and all that it supported that it was no wonder that the priests Pedro Cambon and Angel Somera, selected a site along the west bank of the river for the fourth of the chain of missions, San Gabriel, which, in turn, was used for the river and valley (the mountains were long known as the Sierra Madre, before the San Gabriel moniker was widely adopted by the end of the 19th century.)
The founding date of Mission San Gabriel is 8 September 1771, but its stay in the Narrows was not much more than three years, as by early 1775, higher, dryer ground was selected to the northwest, almost certainly because flooding forced a relocation. The mission, though, established a series of ranchos over its vast domain spreading east to modern San Bernardino, including a quartet in the Narrows and which utilized the forced labor of the native people, some of whom were driven to the missions because animals and invasive introduced plants supplanted the resources upon which they relied.
The story of the indigenous people is one that was almost completely told from the missionary perspective until recent times and the reality is, whatever the intentions were, stark and staggering, as almost all of the natives died from violence, disease, and alcoholism within just a few generations. As for the missions, the incredibly ambitions ten-year time frame in which they were supposed to accomplish their objectives stretched six times that length before the Mexican government “secularized” (closed) them, opening those ranches to private settlement through free grants by the government of the department of Alta California.
The Rancho Potrero Chico o la Misión Vieja, totaling under 100 acres, was granted in 1844 to the Alvitre and Valenzuela, the former being the first settlers of the Old Mission area as far back as 1836, when a census was taken and showed them as being part of the Los Nietos community (this later covered Whittier, Pico Rivera and nearby areas to the south.) The western end of this tiny rancho was where the original mission site was located, though exactly where cannot be pinpointed (despite Walter Temple’s 1921 memorial) because of the lack of permanent buildings and subsequent disturbance from ranching, farming and oil development.
Rancho Potrero de Felipe Lugo (potrero denoting a meadow, of which there was plenty in the narrows for abundant livestock grazing) was somewhat over 2,000 acres and granted in 1845 to Jorge Morillo and his son-in-law Teodoro Romero. The ranch was a short distance east of the river and adjacent to Potrero Chico. To the north and west of them was Rancho Potrero Grande, just north of 4,400 acres and granted to Manuel Antonio (also sometimes given the surname of Pérez), a Mission Indian, also in 1845.
Lastly, there was Rancho La Merced, totaling some 2,363 acres, and lying south of the others, including on both sides of the river (this was also the case with Potrero Grande.) Distinct from the United States, Spanish and Mexican land law permitted women to own real property and, although few Californio women received grants, Casilda Soto de Lobo received La Merced in 1844. She constructed an adobe house on a bluff overlooking the west bank of the river.
The San Gabriel River supported all of these properties to some extent, though whatever farming was done was small-scale and highly localized as cattle, for their hides (for leather) and tallow (or fat, from soap and candles), were the only products for a regional economy largely based on barter, or trade. Information is almost non-existent as to how these quartet of ranches operated and a massive transformation came with the American seizure of Mexican Alta California in 1846-1847 and the subsequent Gold Rush from 1848 onward.
These original rancheros may have prospered as cattle became far more valuable for their sale for fresh meat in the gold fields and other regions to the north. Then came the end of the rush, the introduction of property taxes (which did not exist in the pre-American period), and the expensive and time-consuming land claims process. This latter, starting in 1852 and which required grantees of ranchos to prove ownership of their land and face automatic federal appeals to the courts, took an average of 17 years to adjudicate claims.
Even if these were successful, grantees often encountered financial trouble and many borrowed money, forfeiting partial of total claims in lieu of repayment. Some died during this period, leaving property to children so that the division of land actually reduced economic sufficiency. For costly surveys, required by law for claims, surveyors often took portions of ranchos for payment. Flooding in 1861-1862, drought in 1863-1864, smallpox, grasshopper infestations and other issues also made the situation very difficult, much less the Spanish-speaking Californios’ unfamiliarity with the American legal and tax systems.
The aforementioned deluge, sometimes called “Noah’s Flood” because of its roughly 40-day period of near constant rain, was particularly damaging to ranchos and a location like Whittier Narrows was at even greater risk because of its geological position. The Temple family, for example, whose adobe house was on the plain east of the river were forced to hastily construct a raft to escape the rising waters. The drought that followed finished off most of what was left of the cattle industry, as well.
As recovery was underway when the dry period ended as the Civil War concluded, another heavy winter storm series came in 1867-1868, with the San Gabriel changing course. Following an irrigation ditch built by former governor Pío Pico, of Rancho Paso de Bartolo to the south, it shifted east and absorbed Coyote Creek, coming out of today’s north Orange County, as it cut a new channel to the sea where modern Seal Beach meets Long Beach. The old course became known as the Old San Gabriel River and, by the end of the century, the Río Hondo (Deep River.) That depth would be markedly noted in the Narrows and in the Misión Vieja community.
From the onset of newspapers in Los Angeles, starting in spring 1851 and continuing for most of the rest of the century, references to Old Mission are rather sparse. Most of what is found in these sheets was negative and dismissive of the majority Latino population of the rural and somewhat isolated community, including occasional reports of violence. The Los Angeles Star of 8 November 1856, for instance, briefly reported on a fight during a game of cards in which Refugio Zuñiga of Potrero de Felipe Lugo (his son Manuel later married Lucinda Temple) shot and killed José Antonio Duarte (whose family name is that of a nearby city now.)
The Los Angeles Semi-Weekly Southern News of 14 August 1861 noted that an Anglo, Jasper Smith, got into “difficulty” with “Sonorians,” a term generally applied to recent migrants from that part of México, though sometimes used more widely for Mexicans. It referred to a “free fight” in a dance hall with a gunfight leading to Smith killing one men—it is telling that the Anglo’s name was recorded but not of the deceased or other Latinos involved.
The 10 October 1868 issue of the Star discussed an arrest warrant being served on Vicente Alvitre (whose family included three members lynched during the Fifties and Sixties in an era in which so-called “extralegal” or “popular” justice was all-too-often resorted to when the legal system was deemed unable to function properly). It was reported that Alvitre fired sixteen times before he was mortally wounded, though it was allowed that he “exhibited extraordinary coolness and daring.”
In late March 1871, another Alvitre member, Tomás, was seriously injured by Féliz González over what was initially reported to be an issue about a horse and it was more than a month later that the latter was arrested and jailed in Los Angeles on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon, though he’d been twice questioned by the El Monte justice of the peace and released. He was subsequently convicted on a lesser charge, but the jury recommended mercy, for what were obviously extenuating circumstances, and González was sentenced to a $100 fine or 50 days in the county jail. González, a musician who died the following year, was married to an Alvitre and, with Francisca Valenzuela, had a child, Laura, out of wedlock—she later married Walter P. Temple.
These samples are somewhat representative of what newspapers focused upon, though Old Mission was sometimes mentioned for its local school, misleadingly called La Puente and which was formed by Walter’s and Lucinda’s father, F.P.F. Temple, James Durfee and others. This school was renamed in 1921 after Walter Temple donated a flag pole to the campus and it still exists as New Temple School in South El Monte. Election returns were sometimes reprinted from the precinct with most votes taking place, after 1869, at the adobe house built by Rafael Basye and where Manuel Zuñiga ran a store and saloon and where Walter Temple and his family resided until oil was found on the 60 acres he owned there in the 1910s.
An unusual, if dismissive, description of Old Mission came in the Los Angeles Herald of 24 May 1883, in which the paper observed “the picturesque locality of La Mision Vieja” and where it was claimed that the original building still stood—see below. It was mentioned that the community obtained its water from the “Arroyo Honda,” determined to be “a splendid stream.” It was added, however, that, whatever potential was there, “its principal products are beans, aguardiente [a potent brandy], dances and babies.” Though “the Californians who live here have enough to satisfy their simple wants, and care not for more,” the Herald opined that “it could be made a paradise.”
Otherwise, another rare detailed description of a notable part of the Misión Vieja community came in the 22 August 1884 edition of the Herald concerning the “Arroyo Honda [Hondo]” and, specifically, a portion denoted “a beauty spot” of a watercourse the paper deemed “the most lovely stream in the length and breadth of Southern California” and “which is little known to Angeleños or newcomers.” The exception were “those who travel the road [now San Gabriel Boulevard] which crosses this lovely stream” and these included “the Mexicans who live in the vicinity, as it is located on the rancho La Mision Vieja, and the old settlers.”
The paper continued “the road from the city [Los Angeles] to La Puente, Spadra and beyond, leads away below the hills east of the city, south of the estate of Alexander [Alessando] Repetto, deceased,” this being basically the route following today’s 4th Street out of Boyle Heights, 3rd Street in East Los Angeles, Beverly Boulevard as it goes through that community and into Montebello and then to Lincoln Avenue. The account noted that the road went “across the rancho La Merced, passing close to the residence of Don [Juan] Matias Sanchez, which is just above the road [Lincoln] to the left.”
From there, “about one hundred and fifty yards after descending the short grade, the road turns to the right [San Gabriel Boulevard] in the direction of La Puente, and crosses a substantial bridge, under which flows the lovely stream, Arroyo Honda . . .” The paper then observed that,
To the left of the road going out, at the bridge, is a shady nook, always cool and pleasant, with a pellucid stream ten feet wide and four feet in depth, right in front. This is found by turning to the left before crossing the bridge. To the north, about a quarter of a mile, is the ancient building known as La Mision Vieja, the next oldest mission on the Pacific Coast, and after which the rancho was literally named. The old building . . . is still in a good state of preservation, and is an object of interest not only to those who have seen it for years, but especially for Eastern people, on account of its antiquity.
San Gabriel Boulevard’s route was slightly moved to the north later, though the old pathway still partially exists as part of a bike trail, so the location of the “nook” would be slightly different than as described by the Herald. Moreover, reference to an existing structure probably aligns with a 1936 photo from the University of Southern California archives purported to be mission ruins. The problem, as noted above, though, is that the original Mission San Gabriel did not have adobe buildings and these were almost certainly from one of the later families, either Alvitre or Valenzuela, when they were granted the Rancho Potrero Chico o la Misión Vieja.
The article also observed that “a crude mission was built shortly after this one on the extreme west end of Rancho La Puente, which was a crumbling ruin nine years ago [1874].” This structure, “was not sheltered so well as the first one established, being exposed to wind and rain.” This almost certainly is what appeared on 19th century maps as “Mision Cranoras” and which should have been “Graneros,” or an adobe granary that stood directly north of the Homestead on the north side of Valley Boulevard. It was built by the Mission San Gabriel priests to store grain raised on Rancho La Puente before John Rowland and William Workman took possession nearly a decade after secularization and a letter from F.P.F. Temple to his son Francis refers to those ruins as the Southern Pacific Railroad was building its line adjacent to them in 1874.
Notably, the Herald piece recorded that “the Old San Gabriel River sinks permanently just above the Rancho Potrero Grande,” in what is a portion of El Monte near Interstate 10, “and has no course thence for a long distance south.” At that point, “just east of the old mission building described” and across a road that is likely San Gabriel Boulevard was a dense clump of bushes and trees “impenetrable to man or beast,” although, from the Montebello Hills to the west, a vantage point “discloses a view of the most magnificent boiling spring in the country, the nucleus of the Arroyo Honda.” The spring was bordered by soft dirt banks “and its bottom has never been found,” which seems to account for the use of the word hondo. A few rods (a rod is 16.5 feet, so perhaps 50 feet) downstream, the watercourse’s “beauty is seen in all its loveliness.”
Noting that San Gabriel Boulevard “is unfrequented” while Old Mission “is only occupied by stores, houses and some cultivation,” the paper commented that,
Just north of the bridge, in the shade, is a fine place to camp . . . Just below here, this beautiful stream is divided, with a ditch on the east side and two-thirds of its volume on the west side, which after being turned around a sharp corner in the bluff enters the second wide bed of the Old San Gabriel river. Follow the bluff down a short distance, watching the stream on each side of the river, sink into the sand, and if the source and beauty of the Arroyo Honda had not been seen it would have not been believed that the feeble water running below, on each side of the river, could have originated in such a beauty spot.
Because of later development, including the oil wells on the Temple lease and other property to the south, as well as the 1957 completion of the Whittier Narrows Dam, this section south of the campsite and bridge has been completely altered. The aforementioned rerouting of San Gabriel Boulevard also has changed the geographic location of the “shady nook,” which decades later, in the 1930s during segregation of people of color from public pools and most beaches, became known as Marrano Beach, a popular destination for Latinos who enjoyed the conditions much as described by the Herald 140 years ago.
From the mid-1880s to the mid-1910s, little changed at Old Mission in terms of the use of the land for small-scale ranching and farming. When oil was found in 1914 by Thomas W. Temple II, the son of Walter Temple and Laura González, and wells brought in within a few years, transformation was rapid and profound and the intensive search for oil led to many residents leaving for other places to live. The next major change was the re-designation of the area for flood control and more relocations took place. As noted at the beginning of this post, few people driving through the area today would have any idea that there was such as community as Misión Vieja there today—so Sunday’s presentation and posts like this might be seen as something of a “reclaiming” of that history.