The Story of El Tejon by HELENS. GIFFEN and ARTHUR WOODWARD Director of History Los Angeles County Museum DAWSON'S BOOK SHOP LOS ANGELES 1 9 4 2 THE FINE ARTS PRESS Th.omas E. Williams Santa Ana, California •• _,,-..,,., .. View of Fort Tejon, showing Officers' quarters and Barracks. THE STORY OF EL TEJON One of the two remaining buildings on the Tejon Ranch, dating to Reservation Days. -Photo by Guy J. Giffen, 193 7 Beale adobe on the La Liebre Rancho, Canon de los Osos. -Photo by Guy J. Giffen, 1937 PART ONE The Rancho, the Passes, and the Indian Reserve by Helen S. Giffen PART TWO Fort Tejon-A Nursery of the drmy by Arthur Woodward Director of History Los Angeles County Museum PART ONE THE RANCHO, THE PASSES, AND THE INDIAN RESERVE The history of that portion of the South San Joa­ quin Valley which embraces the region known as El Tejon, provides an interesting chap.ter in the annals of- California. The name Tejon or Badger, applies to the rancho whose expediente contained pro­ visions for a military post; to the Indian reserve, which became the pattern for all such future government projects; to the passes that gave access to the San Joa• quin from the south; and to Fort Tejon, "a Nursery of The Army," and the only military post in southern California located where snow fell. Pedro Fages was the first Spanish explorer of record to enter the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley. He called this great unexplored section Llano de San Francisco, a region of rushing streams, fertile acres, and desert lands, the refuge of runaway Indian neo­ phytes and deserting so/dados de! cueros. It was while hunting the latter that Fages, entered the San Joaquin in the year 177 2. Accompanied by Father Juan Crespi, Fages and his company had been some time in the field. "Coming from San Diego" wrote the leader of this expedition, "in pursuit of deserters, I went and struck the plain fifty leagues toward the east. Lack of water farced us into the sierra, but when we were parallel with the 1 Mission San Gabriel, we went about fifty leagues to strike the plain again; and we went along the plain toward the north, keeping close to the sierra on account of water, traveling about twenty five leagues until we reached the Pass of Buena Vista."1 From the foregoing, it is evident that Fages ap­ proached the valley from the south and that the pass he called Buena Vista corresponds to the present Tejon Pass. From this vantage point Fages' party looked down upon the oak dotted valley and the shores of Castiac Lake which were passed by the explorer as he entered the Canada de las Uvas ( Grapevine Canon), which he traversed ori his way to the San Joaquin Valley. Four years later, in April, 1776, Father Francisco Garces entered the San Joaquin while on a visit to the Tulares, crossing the Tehachapi mountains by way of the original Tejon Pass.2 In the opening years of the nineteenth century, more than one expedition entered this same region. Father Juan Martin, in 1804, left Mission San Miguel, forthe San Joaquin Valley, but his journey stopped short of the Tejon. Governor Arrillaga was particularly in­ terested in taming this wild region, hoping to extend the influence of Spain inland by the establishment of missions and presidios in this area. The Governor sent Gabriel Moraga from the Mission San Juan Bautista, in 1806. Moraga led his party into the upper reaches of the San Joaquin River, and traversed the valley from north to south, going through the pass known as Tejon, and ending his travels at Mission San. Fernando. Lieutenant Francisco Ruiz, in July, 1806, was in charge of an expedition sent out from the Mission Santa Barbara. His company, undoubtedly, went as far north as the southern boundary of the present 2 Fresno county, and then turning back, stopped at the rancheria at Tulare Lake and "on the following day discovered a caiion called cajon de las Uvas. 3 In later years a soldier who had accompanied this expedition was prompted to relate his impressions of this trip: "Our orders were not to proceed much further north than this, so Captain Ruiz crossed over on the other side of the plain, passing by the way of a long Canada which we called the Canada de las Uvas, from the great quantity of Cimarron grapes found in its vi­ cinity. After traveling for several days with the Cap­ tain, we turned up another opening in the mountains, f ram which ran a small stream, further east and south of Las Uvas, which, from finding a dead badger at its entrance, the soldiers named Canada de/ Tejon, a name that it has al'tNays since borne. "4 It is interesting to note that this nameless soldier's account of his trip with Lieutenant Ruiz, contains the first known mention of the origin of the name Tejon. According to A. L. Kroeber, Anthropologist at the University of California, and author of the Handbook of Indians of California, "The hom.e of the Y okuts was the San Joaquin Valley, the entire floor of which they held from the mouth of the river to the foot of the Tehachapi Pass. In addition they occupied the ad ja­ cent slopes of the foothills of the Sierra Nevada up to an altitude of a few thousand feet, from the Fresno River south, but nowhere north of the stream. "-5 The Indians who occupied the Tejon region be­ longed to two different territories. The Tejon rancho, Tejon Creek, and the old Tejon reserve were in Kitane­ muk territory; while the Tejon Pass and Fort Tejon, were· in the Chumash habitat. The· Kitanemuk com­ posed the southern California branch of the Shosho­ neans; "The Kitanemuk belonged to the northern 3 ~ tc ~ ~ ~ 0 '-< .., (') ~ 0 ~ ("') 0 -· 8 U'J ~ =r ~ ~....,_ ..,~ ...... ("') Q. n-· > 0 c::l.. (1q '\56 = ~ n 9 < .., ~ W.KEE::..ER. ll.Ill'GE 'JClN~"'l ....,_ ~ • A..."""'1J.T<it1.~Mwoc.oi.) n 0 •9u•,k•yvA. U'J ~ = oi•hp&i] ~ 8 ('") .., -<: It.OSI!. STA . ~ 0 ~ [Wuwvp•i J 0 9 ...... ("I) . (1) - pi;- C: .., ...... ~.~) ... n c::l.. ..... ~MLDDL = (Hvn&r,11clc1'1. e.) '-< ~ O"'= 0 O"' '°w.., C: U'J ~ W(Jq n C: .., I',. U'J t:r < (1) ~ THE GITANEMUK ~ ..... C: 'Th.e.Jr Site.a •td Pl•c• N.,..,u 0 I ,. 8 =Q. -· 1 ....... .. ....... , =U'J o ""'"we) G;1 ..,. .. ..,,.,1c I/ill";/• Sil!u •• DC) G;~.,..,.,..,Jc. /11111 ...u tb,, )lolt.irt.t Vill•Jt• -!litea 0 <> G/i1111'l;11..,lilt N111wt,u. ..-;,,. T•lt)I• ·c1i,,,.. .... 1,. s;c•• t c.,.,,_.t.· .. y I',. II# 0 section of southern California, to which the generic appelation Serrano has been applied . the name means Mountaineers-those of the Sierra. The Kit­ anemuk lived on upper Tejon and Paso Creeks, whose lower courses are lost in the Y okut plains, before reach­ ing the Kern River ... The Americans are content to call them the Tejon Indians, which would be satis­ factory but for the fact that the former Tejon Reserva­ tion contained a little babel of tribes. Most of the neighbors of the Kitanemuk, today, frequently refer to them as Haminat . .. a nickname-What is it?"6 El Camino Viejo, the old inland route from San Pedro to San Francisco, skirted the southern edge of the San Joaquin Valley long before any land grants were made in that locality. In 1852 Jose Antonio Dominguez received the first grant, the Rancho San Emigdio, which lay along the foothills over looking the plain of the Tulares. This later became the home of Alexander ( or Alexis) Gorley, the frontiersman who accompanied Fremont on his western trip in 1843. The scout was born in St. Louis in 1800 and has frequently been called a French Canadian voyageur. He was commissioned a Lieutenant in California in 1846 and was present at the Battle of San Pascual in December of that year. In later years he operated a ferry on the San Joaquin River and made the San Emigdio rancho his home in the 1870's. Godey married Maria Antonia Coronel, sister of Antonio Francisco Coronel of Los Angeles, but this marriage lasted only a short time. Gorley lived in Bakersfield after 1884, and died in Los Angeles January 19, 1889. During Lieutenant Ed­ ward F. Beale's administration of the Tejon Indian Reservation, Gorley was superintendent of farming operations, and later, during the regime of J. H. P. Wentworth, was Superintendent of Indians. 5 Prior to Beale's control of Indian affairs in Cali­ fornia, Godey frequently received consignments of cattle from James Savage. These were intended for the Indians under the agreements made by the Com­ mission appointed for that purpose by the United States government; but they were conveniently side­ tracked by Godey who sold the beef to the mines for a neat profit. The second grant in this region was Castec, derived from the Yakut word Kashtuk meaning "my eye". Governor Micheltorena granted;_ this land to Jose Maria Covarrubias of Santa Barbara, November 22, 1843. The Canada de las Uvas and the shores of the Castiac Lake were within the boundaries of this grant. The expediente of this rancho did not carry a provision for a military reserve as did that of the Tejon, nor did it provide for the care and succor of the Indians. Covarrubias came to California in 1834 with the Hijar Colonists.