[From: High Country Magazine #28 spring 74]

THE SAN JACINTO MOUNTAINS, with which this story deals, are located in Riverside County, California, and form a barrier between the coastal valleys and the desert. The towns mentioned are all in the vicinity of the mountains.

IN THE EARLY PART of 1867, when my grandfather, Asa Reed, was arriving in California from Comanche County, Texas, with an ox team and a small herd of cattle, he stopped overnight with the Charles Thomas family near the little town of Temecula. That night Victoria "Vicky" Thomas was born. My grandmother, Naoma, helped to bring Vicky into the world. Later on, when Vicky was six years of age, my father was hauling freight, with ox teams, into the San Jacinto Mountains for the Charles Thomas family. One day, after unloading the freight, my father started to move away with the ox team and he heard the scream of a little child. Upon stopping he found that he had run over Vicky with one of the hind wheels. Vicky, seeing the ox whip drop from the wagon, had attempted to retrieve it and fell under the wheel. The little girl proved not to be seriously injured, and afterward a doctor said that had she been an older person the accident could have been more serious.

For many years Victoria (Brooks) Thomas lived in Hemet until she was in her nineties, and she would meet with my sister, Gertrude, and talk about our grandmother helping to bring her into the world. When I would meet with her, she would tell me about the time my father's ox wagon ran over her.

Charles Thomas

THE FIRST TIME I was at the Thomas Ranch I went there with my uncle, Will Tripp, when he was buying some of the Thomas Durham cattle. Charlie wore a beard and walked with quite a lameness which was probably caused from hurts acquired by his work with horses and other livestock. Charlie had a rather strong voice, and he truly liked to talk about horses and Durham cattle. Mrs. Thomas walked with a cane, and she liked to sit by the fireplace and reminisce about the past. When Charlie told some joke concerning his wife, he kept well out of reach of her cane. At that time the Thomas sons and daughters had left the ranch. With Charlie and his wife there lived a young fellow by the name of Tony Martinez. He did the chores, and to do the housework they had a colored girl they called Picky.

WHEN TWO OF THE THOMAS SONS, Jim and George, became old enough to be interested in cattle they bought quite a number of aged, wild, long-horned steers from Old Mexico. It was not long until the old renegade steers felt right at home on the Thomas Ranch and surrounding range, especially on Baldy Mountain. Quite some time passed before they were all gathered. I later placed a horn from one of those old steers in the museum at San Jacinto.

Jim liked to tell of his experiences with those old steers and I want to say that the stories lost nothing in the telling. Jim was a natural comedian, and at no other time have I heard people laugh as they did in a hotel lobby in Imperial Valley. We were selling some beef to Jim who was buyer for the San Antonio Packing Company of Pomona. He entertained everyone until late that night with his stories concerning the old ranch in the San Jacinto Mountains.

His stories were many, but it would be impossible for me to try to tell them as he did. To me, and I am quite sure to most of his lobby audience, the story he told of a stampede they had with some long-horned steers in the outskirts of Riverside was one of his best. He said it was wash day in the area, and a brisk breeze was blowing which caused the clothes to flap, and that started the steers to stampede. Jim told of how the steers would run into the clothes, tangle the lines in their horns and carry clothes and all away with them. This really frightened their mountain horses and it was difficult for the cowboys to close in on the cattle and get them circling. Finally, after the steers lost most of the clothes, they were tired enough to stop running.

When they counted the steers into the slaughterhouse field a few were missing, so the following morning the cowboys went looking for them. Jim said that in those days a lot of people owned very few clothes, and frequently most members of a family would be in bed while their clothes were being washed. Those doing the washing would also be scantily clad in order to get as many clothes on the line as possible.

As the story was told, the stampede caused an acute shortage of something to wear, and Jim told of many laughable sights the cowboys saw while gathering up the lost cattle.

ANOTHER OF JIM'S LAUGHABLE STORIES was of how he and some of the other Thomas kids found a box of crackers and a can of axle grease in the jockey-box of my father's freight wagon. Thinking the axle grease to be jelly, the children ate it all on the crackers. Then Jim would describe how the spindles were howling for grease by the time my father got to where he could buy a new can.

The following morning, when we came down the stairs into the hotel lobby, the people began to laugh again. Perhaps they were expecting some more of Jim's comedy, but by now he was full of business. The weights and prices of steers had to be figured, settlements made, and the cattle loaded into railroad cars and shipped to Pomona.

Jim's brother George was also a cattle buyer. For many years he worked with the Cudahy Packing plant in Los Angeles.

CHARLES THOMAS had what was for him a great bobby; the raising of quarter horses, and his were a fine large type. One time when traveling downstate on my way into Hemet, about where the Catholic Church now stands, two men were out in a stubble field standing beside their saddle horses. They called to me and I rode over to where they were. They wanted to know if I could ride a bucking horse. Their horses were both powerfully built mares of the quarter-horse type, so I began asking questions. I learned the mares were from the Charles Thomas Ranch, and one of the riders was from Bryden Brothers Saddle & Harness Company of Los Angeles. One of the men had been thrown three times and he was reluctant to give it a fourth try.

I had heard a lot about what a struggle it could be to keep some of those old Thomas ponies between your knees, so instead of trying to ride the mare, I offered to snub her to the horn of my saddle and promised that my old black horse and I would try to stay in the same pile with the mare and her rider.

The mare was determined to get rid of her rider the fourth time, but I managed to prevent him from getting bucked off again. I rode as far as Coyote Pass with the men, doing everything I could to make the mare tired. Some time later I learned that they had ridden all night, and never stopped for anything until arriving in Los Angeles the following day.

THINGS HAVE TRULY CHANGED since the Charles Thomas family lived on the ranch in the San Jacinto Mountains. There can no longer be such things as riding on horseback through the night between Hemet and Los Angeles, nor will there ever be more cattle drives to San Bernardino, Riverside, or the Los Angeles area. What chance would a team of oxen have now on any of the roads leading into Thomas Valley?

When Charles Thomas moved into the San Jacinto Mountains there were California grizzly bears in the area. I have heard my father tell of cowboys roping the bears when they would be out in the meadows feeding, and they found them to be rough and rugged on the loop end of a rawhide riata. But so were some of the cowboys of those days rugged and rough.

I remember hearing my father tell of Charles Thomas when he had some range horses corraled near Temecula. Charles was counting the horses as he turned them out the corral gate, and as the last horse went by Charles made a pass at the horse's hip with his spur and the spur hung in the horse's tail. Being the cowboy that he was, and having a fine horse beneath him, Thomas managed to run with the horse until he got his spur unbuckled. Of course he never saw the spur again.

FROM WHAT HAS BEEN WRITTEN about the Charles Thomas family I find that Charles Thomas and Genevieve Bardico were married May 14, 1861, in Los Angeles. I have read also that she was born in Santa Barbara. From information their daughter Victoria had, I learned that Charles H. Thomas came to California in 1849 from Bloomington, New York. It is said that he first arrived in San Francisco after a voyage by boat around the Horn. Then, after arriving in southern California, he discovered the mines at Temescal. When Thomas sold his interest in these mines he took as part payment two hundred head of cattle. In looking for a place to keep his cattle he learned of a sizeable meadow in the San Jacinto Mountain area. He moved there, and it is said he traded the Indians twenty-two head of cattle for their claim to somewhere around four thousand acres.

From other writings I find the names of the Thomas children as being: Adeliza, Fannie, Joseph, Charles, Victoria, Lulu, James, George and Emma. Victoria, Jim and George were the three I really became acquainted with, although I remember seeing Joseph and Fannie.

The old Thomas Ranch has long since lost its name, and today it is known as Garner Valley. The mountain to the southwest, though, still retains the name of Thomas, and I'm hoping it will continue to do so. To me, it seems a tragedy for the old-time names to be abandoned. After a while we old-timers will all be out of the picture and that won't matter much. But I hate to see the historic place names of California sacrificed and forgotten.

[From: Riverside County, California Dictionary of Place Names]

Now called Garner Valley (see) and also, since the 1880s, Hemet Valley (see), the original name commemorated early-day rancher, stockman, and horse-breeder Charles Thomas. Thomas, himself, apparently preferred the name of "Hernmet Valley," as shown by an illustration and accompanying legend in Elliott's 1883 History of San Bernardino and San Diego Counties. A native of New York state, Thomas came to California in 1849 by sailing ship, arriving in San Francisco when he was 14 years old. After traveling and working extensively up and down the Pacific Coast, he began dealing in stock and then farmed in Los Angeles County. He also did some mining. In about 1860, he and Augustus Knight filed a claim for "certain leads or lodes of minerals supposed to contain tin and other metals" in the Temescal Tin Mining District (see), selling their claim to Abel Stearns on January 10, 1861, for $600 (SBC Deeds Bk. E p. 87). On May 14, 1861, he married Genoveva Bardico, who had come from Spain at the age of six. In 1866 or 1867, with 200 head of cattle, he moved to Temecula where he operated a cattle ranch and flour mill. Becoming friendly with Indians in the area, he learned of the large meadow in the San Jacinto Mountains where the Mountain Cahuilla had a village. He and one Thomas Casey explored the route in and the meadow itself. The Indians granted him the right to settle there in exchange for cattle---200 head according to some reports, 22 according to others. In 1872 or 1873, after building a road into the mountains and constructing a house and ranch buildings, Thomas moved his family to their new home. Many of the Indians had taken their cattle and moved to what are now Cahuilla and Ramona Indian Reservations, while others remained to work for Thomas, apparently by agreement. Ramona and Juan Diego of Helen Hunt Jackson's novel Ramona are said to have been among those who worked on the ranch. The ranch buildings were built on the site of the Indian village (Elliott 1883 p. 167, Illustrated History of Southern California 1890 p. 357, Reed 1967 p. 226, Maxwell Dec. 14, 21, 1958). Although Thomas is said to have bought his land from the Indians, records in the San Diego County Recorder's Office show that over the years he and his family acquired their land legally by homesteading and by purchase from the United States General Land Office and from the State of California, some of the land patents being in his name and others in his wife's name and the names of two of his sons.

The Thomas Ranch and stories concerning it were of great interest to others over a long period of time, partly because of its location and size, and partly because of the stock Thomas maintained there. The Riverside Press & Horticulturist, July 29, 1893, reported that Thomas "imported from Kentucky the first thoroughbred stock ever brought to Southern California, and today he owns probably the best herds of thoroughbred horses and cattle in the State. His cattle have taken many first premiums at different fairs in the State, and in Los Angeles when in competition with Baldwin's stock. Some noted horses are from this ranch notably Pescadore, who beat the State record for three-year-olds. This season Mr. Thomas took three of his best young horses East, and at St. Louis one of them, Charley T, had the best average among 1800 two-year-olds. So good was his record that Mr. Thomas was offered $8000 for him, which he refused, holding the colt at $10,000. He is now at Chicago, where he is entered in the big races." While he was showing and racing horses, Mrs. Thomas was back at the ranch with her 11 children, taking care of the stock. In 1898, she sold the ranch to Harold Kenworthy (see Kenworthy). At that time it comprised 2,100 acres. In 1900, Kenworthy deeded the property back to the Thomases (RC Deed Bk. 63 p. 298, Bk. 115 p. 83). Finally, on December 28, 1905, the ranch, apparently containing 1,680 acres at that time, was sold to Robert F. Garner of San Bernardino (RC Deed Bk. 211 p. 379), but it was not until many years later that the valley ceased to be called Thomas Valley and began to be called Garner Valley (see).

[From: Riverside County, California Dictionary of Place Names]

Named for James (Uncle Jim) Hamilton. Born in Ohio in 1821, he was of racially mixed stock and was regarded by many people as being black. He came west by way of Mormon wagon trains, stopping off for about a year to live with the Sioux Indians, and reached San Bernardino in about 1850. From there he went to San Diego and built a hotel, but after a time he moved into the mountain country to the Rancho San Felipe area, where he married an Indian girl. When he found that he was on land claimed by a Mexican grant, he moved on to a valley between Aguanga and Temecula in what is now Riverside County. Because of his mixed ancestry, the valley became known as Nigger Valley (see) and was so named on maps for many years (Reed 1967 pp. 207-209). The 1870 census listed Hamilton as black, a widower, living with his four children on a 160-acre farm worth over $5,000, well above the median value of farms in the area. His farm, however, proved to be on Rancho Pauba, so he was forced by a lawsuit to move again, this time going into the western San Jacinto Mountains. He settled in Cahuilla Valley, or what was also called Cahuilla Plains, as well as Hamilton Plains (Bradford 1976) by old-timers, but is now Anza Valley. In the summer of 1876, his presence was noted by U.S. Deputy Surveyor M.G. Wheeler, who ran his survey lines of the township to include Hamilton's house and field, remarking that Hamilton and a Mr. Vines were the only settlers in the township (RCRD Bk. 9 p. 125). Hamilton died in 1897, a highly respected citizen and landowner. Government surveyors who were in the area during 1897-98 named Hamilton Creek for him and it was shown for the first time on the 1901 U.S. Geological Survey San Jacinto Quadrangle (see also Columbia Mine).

[From: High Country Magazine ]

HERE IS A HEART-WARMING STORY of eighty-eight years of pioneering wrapped up in one lively, lovable, bouncing package who typifies the pioneer women of America, particularly those of Spanish or Mexican heritage who helped to build the most populous state in the Union. The reader is cautioned to remember that Hemet Valley is high in California's San Jacinto Mountains. The town of Hemet is at the foot of the mountains in the San Jacinto Valley.

BY FRANK M. WOOLLEY

"I HIT YOU GENE! You eat my can'y, I hit you!" The high-pitched little voice pierced the clear mountain air and spread in all directions. Manuel Arnaiz heard the commotion as his horse picked its way down a boulder-strewn hillside.

When a hundred yards from home, he could see only his oldest son running not too speedily past the front of the ranch house, laughing loudly and occasionally turning his head to look behind. Lowering his gaze, Manuel saw his daughter Fanny---a cute little moppet not a day over three---round the far corner in hot pursuit of Gene. She waved a stick in her tiny hand, threatening her teasing big brother. Her curls, the color of spun gold in the afternoon sun, bounced like coiled springs with each step she took. Manuel watched and chuckled.

"I'll not have to worry about that one," he thought, "already she knows how to take care of herself."

FANNY ARNAIZ was born in Yucaipa on July 15, 1890, the fourth child of Manuel and Dolores Garduna Arnaiz. Newlyweds, they had moved from Colton to Yucaipa where they took up squatter's rights. In a few short years their family grew to include Clara, Eugene, Daisy and Fanny. On hearing about the Hemet Valley---twenty miles up in the mountains east of the city of Hemet---being opened for homesteading, Manuel filed on a hundred and sixty acres near Kenworthy(#2) and moved his family there in May of 1891. It was ideal cattle country, awash with high-grassed meadows peppered with tall pines and hemmed by mountains in back of mountains---the tallest, Mount San Jacinto, soaring to almost eleven thousand feet. This would remain the Arnaiz ranch until the mid 1920s when it would be sold to Ed Bunker.

"Of course, I don't remember much about those early years," Fanny now says, her green eyes twinkling, "but the stories told by my parents and my grandmother, Teresa de Monroy who was born in Spain, later became inseparable from my own memories."

Fanny Joan (Arnaiz) Contreras bad a family tree that reads like a who's who of early California history, sprinkled with such well-known names as Garduna, Verduga, and Venezuela. Her own life that has, so far, spanned an eight-eight-year segment of history in the areas of Hemet, San Jacinto, Idyllwild, Anza, Aguanga and Sage, brings to light a new perspective on how this particular bit of the Old West was won. Fanny remembers:

"WE HAD no more than settled-in on our new ranch, having brought our cattle from Yucaipa, than mother and father became acquainted with the neighbors. We became good friends with Charlie Thomas, his wife Genevieve and their daughter Victoria,(#3) the Hancock Johnsons and a couple of newcomers, C. W. Whittier and E. L. Mayberry who were just starting construction on the Hemet Dam."

In this part of the country people were a scarce commodity in 1891, and the dam offered years of steady employment. Manuel's ability to speak Spanish, English, French, German and Italian kept him busy with the multi-lingual work crew while his wife Dolores, a willing hand, did the laundry for many of the workers. The Arnaiz ranch soon outgrew its one hundred and sixty acres and new grazing land to the east was leased from the government.

"Looking back, it seems like everything happened so fast. Grandmother Teresa died in 1893 and good times at the dam came to an end two years later. My father then went to work at the old Hemet Belle gold mine. His job was hauling ore from the mine down to the Chilson Mill, near Kenworthy. Burros carried the ore in kyacks (pack sacks). I don't know if the mine made any money, but it didn't last long. In. 1897 Harold Kenworthy, a man of considerable wealth, acquired several mining claims and quite a bit of land around Kenworthy. Soon, the Kenworthy Mine was in operation. He also built the Corona Hotel there and for several years it was again good times for everyone. Charles and Emma Lockwood had the General Merchandise store. The senior Lockwoods, Charles's parents, had the old Pioneer Hotel in San Jacinto. [Built about 1884.]"

Of electricity, telephone, commercial water, automobiles or school, there were none. Lack of the latter bothered Manuel and Dolores. Not wanting their children to grow up without an education, it became their practice to board their school-agers, with friends who lived near schools. In 1897 it was Fanny's turn. She went down the mountain to live with the Refugio Molina family, first in Redlands, then in the town of Florida, later to become Valle Vista when the town of Hemet was born. She stayed there until 1900 when a school was established at Kenworthy.

"I FINISHED the third grade in Valle Vista before going home and I think my teacher's name was Mrs. Prince. But I was just a little kid in the first, second and third grades. My best memories are of home and family. Before long I was to have four younger brothers: Daniel, Edward, Ernest and Henry, raising the number of Arnaiz kids to eight. We had to invent our own games which we played outdoors. In all of them there was lots of yelling, scuffling and wrestling, and one time near tragedy when we set fire to a pile of tinder-dry pine needles. Our behinds were warmed real good for that little trick .

"We learned quickly about Mother's expertise with a long, six-span horse whip, fire and flash floods. And while still quite young we could ride anything with four legs and hair."

Back then, country schools were hardly more than one-room shacks pressed into service and the new Kenworthy school was no exception. All of the children attending schools off the mountain were home for the holidays, and Christmas 1899 turned out to be something special.

"'None of us knew. a thing about earthquakes, so we were unprepared for a frightening experience. Our little house shook and rattled. Furniture slid across bleached-white wooden floors, dishes fell from cupboards, and for a few seconds it was almost impossible to stand upright. Although we didn't realize it, the quake was actually light in Kenworthy. Old San Jacinto at Hewitt and Evans Streets---where the old Riverside County Hospital stood before being moved to Arlington---was totally destroyed."

By 1901 THE KENWORTHY MINE operation had folded, ending a few years of prosperous times for Hill residents. It didn't make any money, for the mine had been salted to entice Kenworthy to buy the mining claims that turned out to be grazing, rather than gold-bearing, land. The ranchers, however, including Arnaiz, were growing and prospering. Manuel took a job with Hancock Johnson and among his chores was the butchering of two steers a week for delivery to the summer resort of Rynetta (now Idyllwild), higher up the mountain.

"Place names weren't the only things different in those days. The roads were terrible. By the time we moved to Hemet Valley the old road to Strawberry [now Idyllwild], built by Joe Crawford in 1874, was no longer a toll road. A regularly scheduled stage pulled by four horses, and lumber wagons pulled by six horses, created a traffic hazard on the old road up the mountain. Parts of the road can still be seen from the new highway.

"The old road was plain dirt, narrow and steep---no more than a ledge carved from the side of the mountain following the edge of deep canyons. At the foot of the grade, on the Hemet side was the Louis Aguillar ranch, Oak Cliff. He supplied fresh horses for the stage that made a round trip in one day. I remember one of the stage drivers, Ray Forbes. Bruce Morris drove a lumber wagon. His horses wore bells, and anyone on the grade who heard bells scurried for a wide place. I don't think Bruce ever slowed down."

THE LITTLE KENWORTHY SCHOOL in Chilson Flats flourished for almost three years. Then, because of the distance between the dam and the other end of the long valley, another one-roomer replaced it. The new one was located at about the halfway point, on the Thomas ranch (later to become the Garner ranch). For another few years Hill parents, the kids, and teachers Loveland, Williams and Singletary were happy.

"I continued to go to school there until 190.6 when I met and married John Contreras. My sister Daisy had married John's brother Antonio a little earlier. We lived with them for awhile, on the Omstott ranch, when we were first married, Then we moved to John's father's home in Colton."

Their stay in Colton was a short one. The following spring Fanny and John were back in the mountains on the Flemming ranch (near Keen Camp), having decided they could make a lot of money growing potatoes. There was no problem with the potato crop, but to sell it meant a long haul down the mountain via the old Keen Camp road, then across the San Jacinto Valley to Moreno, a distance of some fifty-odd miles. The trip took two, sometimes three, days, to pick up two dollars per hundred pounds. Thinking it was definitely not worth the effort, Fanny and John packed up and returned to Colton, building a little 18-by-18-foot house on property belonging to Jesus Contreras, John's father.

"One of John's cousins helped to build the small three-room place and when it was finished he and his wife moved in with us. We slept in the bedroom and they had the kitchen. After one winter we moved back on the Hill, this time to the Hamilton ranch on the Cahuilla Plains, [It became Anza in 1926.] At the time, Henry Hamilton was the only white man living in the area. John worked there for more than a year."

This was Indian country, a sprawling valley of rolling sagebrush land backing up to foothills and taller mountains on three sides, a treeless wilderness ever changing, yet ever the same. In 1909 this area was opened for homesteading and John filed on a hundred and sixty acres of Grade A sagebrush and red shank. He then bought a little one-room miner's shack at Kenworthy for fifteen dollars, tore it down, hauled the lumber to the homestead and put it back together. This was the first ranch home of Fanny and John.

WITH THEIR WORK cut out for them., land was cleared and grain planted. Soon they bad cattle, a handful of chickens, and a garden. Fanny's father had long since given each Arnaiz girl a cow or two and by 1910, when Fanny and John set up housekeeping on their homestead, the earlier gift of cows had grown to a respectable small herd.

"Our first winter in that little shack. was a challenge. The roof, a checkerboard of cracks and holes through which the sun and stars shore, kept us busy. When it rained we weren't much better off than we would have been outside, and when it snowed we fought a losing battle sweeping it off the roof before it fell through, But we lived in that one room through two winters, In 1912, when the big influx of settlers began coming into the valley, we were in pretty good shape. By then we had a well and much more cleared land. It was slow, however, for every foot of land had to be cleared by hand. We had grain to sell, and made four hundred dollars that year. That was a lot of money in those days and it made it possible for us to improve our home and prove up on our homestead. It was in 1913 that we received our Grant Deed, signed by President Woodrow Wilson."

With the death of John's father from cancer his property in Colton was sold and the proceeds divided between John and his brother and sister. With a part of his share John bought two horses, one to ride and one to work. This was a big help in clearing more land and in the planting of more grain and a fruit orchard. In the fall their cattle were driven down into the desert east of the mountains for winter grazing, following Coyote Canyon, the same trail taken by Juan Bautista de Anza in 1775.

"LIVING on the Cahuilla Plains was anything but a dull life; something was always happening. I remember when Indian agent Will Stanley was killed. I'm not sure the whole story ever did come out. At the time, the government furnished bulls and stallions to the Indians at no charge. The animals were kept corralled and were all branded with an I D [Indian Department]. Someone, never identified, told the Indians that the government planned to take away the bulls and stallions. This was cause for much stewing that reached a boiling point in May of 1912.

"Stanley asked to be excused from some kind of a meeting on the reservation, and while at the schoolhouse there, harsh words were exchanged between himself and a few Indians. In the heated argument that developed Stanley was shot in the back and killed. An Indian officer, Selso Serrano, was wounded. The gun used had been taken from another Indian officer, John Largo. In the excitement, Serrano, thinking he might be killed, ran away and made his way to our house. Though he was quite a heavy man, and very bloody, we managed to get him in a wagon and take him to my sister Daisy's house about a half-mile away. The nearest phone was at the Garner Ranch [until 1906 the Thomas ranch], or at Aguanga. Both were about twenty miles from our home. Eventually the doctor arrived. Serrano recovered.

"The ten Indians who had killed Stanley and wounded Serrano were caught in Riverside where they intended to hire an attorney. Their trial was held in Los Angeles a year later, being a federal case, and we were all subpoenaed. The Indians were given ten-year sentences at McNeil Island."

Nineteen-fourteen brought a more pleasant experience to Fanny and John. That year they bought a new Model-T Ford. It cost four hundred dollars and enabled them to get around the countryside in an easier manner than on horseback or by wagon and team despite the fact that the dirt roads were still terrible. To do their shopping in San Jacinto or Hemet they would follow Wilson Canyon above Aguanga, across to Saint John's Grade and into the valley along the present route of R-3. It was an all-day trip.

"During our first years on the homestead, getting our mail was a problem. We could pick it up at Aguanga or at Keen Camp, twenty -miles or better from the ranch. There was a post office at Cahuilla, on the reservation, but the Indians didn't like the idea of white men getting their mail there. So, in 1913 a post office was established in the home of Will Shaney at Baptista. This name was changed to Bautista in 1924 and to Anza on September 16, 1926."

Though ranching on the Cahuilla Plains was often backbreaking work and money was often in short supply, there were compensations. Good neighbors were many---always willing to lend a helping hand. There was also a social life with a time for dancing and entertainment. Indian fiestas and rodeos drew record crowds as did square dances at Anza, Terwilliger, Sage and Idyllwild.

"These were never dress-up affairs, just ranch levis and calico dresses. But we did see all our friends and had wonderful times. The Hamilton School at Anza [built in 1914 and still standing] was a popular spot. Someone always volunteered to baby-sit the little ones in the teacherage next door, so no one would be denied these small, but looked-forward-to pleasures."

The days were rarely long enough. From sunup to sundown John worked his crops, the roundup of cattle, the branding, and the cattle drives. Fanny had her own garden and put in an equally long day picking fruit, taking care of the chickens, canning, making butter, and milking her cows.

Then she would crank up the Ford coupe---that John had converted into a sort of pick-up truck-and visit her neighbors, selling her surplus butter, eggs and produce. She also found time to join the ladies' Thimble Club, take care of children---boarding many over the years-and to raise her niece, Eleanor Arnaiz. The Thimble Club was started as a social event; a get-together for the ladies to talk and enjoy tea and cookies served on real china. It still functions, the membership having grown somewhat in the intervening sixty-five years.

"It was in 1916 when news of the great mail robbery in San Jacinto filtered up the hill. The culprits were caught between Diamond Valley and Sage. It didn't mean too much to its. We were too far away, but it was a chief topic of conversation in San Jacinto and Hemet for weeks."

On April 21, 1918, Fanny had her second experience with an earthquake.

"'We were at a neighbor's house celebrating a birthday and had just finished dinner when it happened. The upright piano rolled around the living-room like a crazed thing while the house shook and the windows rattled. Out the window we could see dust clouds from rocks rolling down Thomas Mountain. I recalled the earthquake when I was a little girl. All I could think of then was hiding my doll so she wouldn't be killed. In this quake, though we suffered no damage, San Jacinto was all but destroyed and Hemet, too, was hard hit."

MANUEL ARNAIZ, Fanny's father, died in 1925 and the ranch which had been the family home for thirty-four years was sold to Ed Bunker. John and Fanny built a new home on their Cahuilla Plains ranch, the first in the area to boast an inside bath. Everyone in the valley casually dropped by to see the innovation. The area was growing up and its name was changed from Bautista to Anza.

"We had another flurry of excitement in 1927 when the earthfill extension of Hemet Dam broke, sending torrents of water down the north fork of Strawberry Creek. [This creek is one of the contributing waterways that form the San Jacinto River.] The bridge near the present Cranston Ranger Station was damaged beyond repair and Mont Webster was killed.

"Through the depression years of the 'thirties Anza residents stuck together. Though most were on the 'pink, slip' [equivalent of welfare], they weathered those harsh years probably better than most city-bred wage earners., for they had been raised with hardship and deprivation. My mother, Dolores, died in 1931, and before we knew it we were into the 1940s and our country was involved in World War II."

After taking nurse's training Fanny joined the First Aid Reserve and left Anza in 1945, reassured by the fact that she had served on the school board for fourteen years and for almost as many on the election board.

"John had suffered from arthritis for years before we accepted the advice of his doctor to sell the ranch and move off the mountain to Hemet. In that milder climate John lived until 1964."

Her bouncing curls still very much in evidence, though now snow white, Fanny laughs as she continues:

"I don't took back too much, but when I do I see a full life of much happiness sprinkled with unavoidable sorrows,. I've had a small role in eighty-eight years of changes and each day see more that are added to my memories. Dolores Arnaiz, daughter of my younger brother, Ernest, lives with me. She is a talented young woman and her natural zest for life helps to keep me young and looking forward to each day-wondering what changes it will bring."

Of the Manuel and Dolores family, except for grandchildren and great-grandchildren, Fanny is the last of the clan. She still drives her own car and is active with her church work and her hobbies. Her sense of humor is delightful and her laughter contagious as she brings to life her recollections of earlier times as a twentieth century pioneer.

[From: High Country Magazine #19, winter 1971]

WARNER'S RANCH! The very name is fraught with memories of Indian villages, of Spanish explorers, of American adventurers, marching armies, Indian uprisings, stage coaches, cattle drives-and, finally, of gracious living in an isolated spa.

Jacopin, the Indians who first lived there called the hot springs that are now the ranch's best-known attraction. The Indians called themselves Palatingua, which means Hot Water. Somewhere along the line they assumed the name Cupeño, and their principal village, located around the steaming pools where Warner Springs now flourishes, was known as Kupa. That is, it was until the Mexicans changed it to Agua Caliente, which also means Hot Water.

The Cupeños had a love affair with the high valley whose encircling mountains protected them from desert heat and ocean fog. They loved the crisp air that flows down off the high peaks to the east; the wild game and the grasshoppers, the oak with its abundant acorns, and the piñon with its delicious nuts---all of which furnished them with sustaining nourishment and was theirs for the taking.

But perhaps best of all they loved the hot springs that gave them warmth and cleanliness.

Into this land of contentment, in 1795, rode Father Juan Mariner, sent out from Mission San Diego de Alcalá in search of new mission sites. He was well received by the Cupeños and recommended the establishment of a mission and presidio in the valley, to which he gave the flavorful name of Valle de San José.

His recommendation, however, was to go unheeded and it was not until 1830 that a chapel was established on a hill overlooking Kupa and the hot springs.

THE YEARS passed quietly. The Valley of San Jose was always quiet, the stillness punctuated only occasionally by the call of quail on a warm summer afternoon, or the staccato barking of a coyote as his ancestral memory was strangely stirred by a distant Indian campfire. Then, one day in the autumn of 1831, a strange sound broke the silence of the valley. Ten Americans, accompanied by a Negro slave, came over the pass from San Felipe Valley. With them were horses and mules, eager to rest in the lush valley after the long desert crossing from Santa Fe. Although the Cupeños did not know, and it probably would have meant nothing to them if they had, five of the pack mules were loaded with silver pesos; for the purpose of this expedition was to buy California mules to be driven back to Louisiana.

Leading this expedition was David Jackson. One of his chief lieutenants was a young man by the name of John Trumbull Warner.* Warner, recently from Connecticut, eyed the broad valley covetously, for it was the first land of hospitable appearance that he had seen since leaving the valley of the Rio Grande. But his duty was with his companions, and he pressed on.

When mules had been rounded up from as far north as the San Francisco Bay area and corralled on Rancho Sierra near the present town of Corona, Warner participated in the mule drive through Temescal Canyon, Temecula, the Valley of San José, and on to the Colorado River. There he bid the party farewell.

For the next dozen years Warner earned his living by trapping the rivers of California, from the Feather to the lower Colorado, and by working as a clerk in the Los Angeles mercantile establishments of Abel Stearns and John Temple. Always ambitious, he soon started his own business.

It was during this period that the Connecticut Yankee courted and won a young woman by the name of Anita Gale. Anita was a foster sister of Pio Pico's, having been left in the care of Pico's mother by an English sea captain. The couple was married in Mission San Luis Rey, down the river by-that name from the valley soon to bear Warner's name.

MEANWHILE, soon after Warner arrived in California, the southern portion of the valley, designated Rancho Valle de San José, was granted to Silvestre de la Portilla. Portilla apparently did nothing with his grant. In 1840 the northern portion of the valley, designated Rancho San Jose del Valle, was granted to José Antonio Pico, Pio Pico's brother. Pico built a house on his grant and attempted for a short time to conduct a cattle ranch. Trouble with the Indians brought the attempt to an end.

Warner had never forgotten his first sight of the Valley of San Jose, nor the covetousness that had engulfed him that fall day back in 1831. He became a Mexican citizen, had his name changed from John Trumbull to Juan José, and in 1844 received from Governor Manuel Micheltoreno a grant to the entire 48,000-acre valley, described as ". . . the place known by the name of Valle de San José, which is unoccupied [apparently Indians were not considered occupants], situated to the east of San Diego, and distant from the said pueblo about twenty leagues, surrounded by the Sierra, with entrance from San Felipe on the east, from Temecula on the north, from Pala on the west, and from Santa Ysabel on the south."

Juan José Warner and his bride, Anita, lived for a short time in the house that José Pico had built, but soon completed their own home of adobe with a shingle roof. It still stands about five miles from the hot springs on the slope that leads down into the valley from San Felipe. The home, with its large adobe barn, served as a trading post and was the first sign of "civilized" habitation on the long trail from the East. It was a stopping place for many weary travelers fresh off the desert. When the war with Mexico started in 1846, it was Warner's Ranch that greeted General Stephen Watts Kearney with his Army of the Wets and Colonel Philip Saint George Cooke with his Mormon Battalion when they arrived from Fort Leavenworth.

As the short-lived war floundered in its dying stages, eleven Mexicans, taken captive by Indians in nearby Pauma Valley, were slain at Kupa.(#1) Soon afterward an Indian uprising, secretly promoted by William Marshall, an employee of Warner's, resulted in the burning of the roof of Warner's home and the pillaging of his store of goods. Warner and another man and an Indian boy were trapped in the house. In attempting to escape, the man was killed but Warner, carrying the boy, fought his way to the barn where he mounted, put the boy behind him, and made his get-away. Warner had killed two Indians as he ran from the house and later that night four immigrants were killed by the Indians near the village of Kupa.

IN SPITE of these bloody interludes, Warner's Ranch was known all the way back the trail into Texas and Missouri as a haven of respite on the way to the Golden Land. When the war was over and the immigrant trains began to roll, it was Warner's Ranch that the immigrants and gold-seekers looked forward to as they plodded across the Colorado Desert.

In 1857 Congress authorized James E. Birch's semi-monthly "Jackass Mail," and through the upper reaches of Warner's Ranch the first transcontinental mail wagons-from San Antonio, Texas-passed on their way to San Diego. The "Jackass Mail" also carried passengers, and Birch, in soliciting trade, advertised that "An armed escort travels through the Indian country with each mail train." No doubt he referred to the Apache country.

In 1858 John Butterfield began operation of the Great Overland Mail.** Like their forerunners, the lumbering Butterfield stages found a haven at Warner's where a relay station was established at the old ranch house. Warner, by this time, had moved on to other fields of endeavor, including a term in the California Legislature.

The War Between the States brought an abrupt halt to mail and passenger coaches over the southern route and Warner's played host to armies marching to join the Union forces and smaller groups on their way to join the Confederate Army. For a brief time Camp Wright, later moved to Oak Grove, served the Union Army on Warner's Ranch.

When peace again came to the land Warner's Ranch resumed its role as host to thousands of immigrants making their way westward over the Southern Trail. Discovery of gold in the mountains near Julian brought another wave of Argonauts, displaced by the war and lured by the dual promise of wealth and adventure in the pine-clad hills.

After construction of the railroads, which had chosen other routes to the coast, Warner's Ranch settled into a long rest. Coyotes, deer and mountain lions roamed its hills much as they had since the beginning of their play on earth. The Cupeño Indians lived their lives quietly, catering to the few travelers who passed their way with the offer of soothing baths in their hot springs. Cattle munched the short, nutritious grass that covered the valley. But somehow, things were always destined to happen in the Valley of San Jose.

IN 1888 Walter Vail, Arizona cattleman, leased Warner's Ranch from California Governor John G. Downey who had come into possession of the valley. Two years later, in 1890, Vail disagreed with the Southern Pacific over freight rates and started a drive of a thousand head of cattle over five hundred miles of desert from the Empire Ranch in eastern Arizona to Warner's Ranch. The cattle arrived in good condition and, convinced that it could be done, the Southern Pacific lowered its rates.

Downey, who never himself stayed for any length of time on the ranch, was nevertheless anxious to clarify his title to that portion occupied by the Cupeño Indians. For fourteen years he, and after ter his death his heirs, tested the case in court. At last, in 1901 the Supreme Court of the United States upheld a California court decision that the Cupeños must move. Two years later they were moved to the Indian village of Pala."

About all that then remained in the Valley of San José of the old Indian culture was the little chapel and cemetery near the hot springs. It was the white man's era in the valley and, as usual, the white man began to look about to see how he could change the environment. William Griffith Henshaw came to the valley and began acquiring water rights. It took him a long time because rights had to be secured over the entire sixty miles from Warner's Ranch to the sea. But by 1922 everything was in readiness and a dam was constructed in the lower portion of the valley where the San Luis Rey River enters the hills. creating Lake Henshaw and designed to furnish water for the San Diego area.

A spacious resort was constructed where the Indians had once lived and where history was made. Lake Henshaw took its place as a favorite fishing resort. Pavement reached the valley. The day of the Anglo had truly arrived.

IN.. SPITE OF its modernization, with an airport and azure swimming pool steaming with natural hot water, Warner's Ranch today retains much of the flavor of the past. Cattle still graze on its hills and flatlands, coyotes sing their noctural song of lament and Juan José Warners sagging ranch house sits brooding, awaiting a helping hand to save it from final collapse.

Across the broad acres in the shadow of Volcan Mountain, nocturnal ghosts are said to gather, perhaps to discuss the old days. It's possible, if you listen very closely, you might hear the voice of Kit Carson, of Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, of Ewing Young, of Pegleg Smith, of Cecilio Blacktooth, of Walter Vail. Surely, around the old ranch house on the road to San Felipe, the voices of John Trumbull---Juan José, if you prefer---and Anita might be heard ever so faintly.

RESTORATION of the Warner ranch house, stage station and store, now designated a State and National Historic Landmark but sadly neglected, has long been considered. Toward that end the Warner Springs Lions Club is urging a four-fold project which it hopes. while fostering, to pass on to county, state or other agencies. In addition to restoring the old adobe building, the Lions propose:

Acquisition of right-of-way for a trail following the Butterfield route from Vallecito to Temecula, a distance of 76 miles, parts of which would be wide enough for the operation of stages; and operation of a stage coach, now being restored, from Warner's Resort to the old Warner house, with a possibility, of extending the stage line farther along the route as required by public demand.

[From: High Country Magazine ]

ASK ANY CALIFORNIAN what Palomar Mountain is famous for, and he'll immediately tell you that it's the home of the world's largest telescope. But ask him what else he knows about the mountain and chances are he'll stammer something incomprehensible and change the subject.

To the majority of Californians, Palomar Mountain came into existence in 1934 when it was chosen as the home of the giant telescope. The construction problems brought the state's attention to this remote outback, just fifty miles northeast of the busy port of San Diego.

But long before that happened, it was from the oak-studded slopes of Palomar that the Luiseño Indians obtained many of the acorns with which they made the mush they called wee-wish, and it was from the pine-clad highlands of the mountain that the first Spaniards obtained timbers for the missions at San Luis Rey and Pala.

At that time the mountain was the home of countless wild pigeons so the Spaniards called it Palomar, or nesting place of the pigeons. But the Spaniards never lived there, and for many years it remained an exclusive summer resort of the Indians.

Palomar Mountain, however, was home to a number of American settlers long before the coming of the telescope. Birch Hill, near the summit of the "Highway to the Stars," was homesteaded by two of the greenest young Englishmen ever to come to San Diego County. Their log cabin was almost completed when a neighbor happened by. "Why doesn't your cabin have a door and windows?" the neighbor asked.

"We'll cut the door and windows out after the cabin is finished," replied the greenhorns. But they never did. They always climbed in and out using a ladder and crawling through a small opening under one gable.

One day a neighbor asked Harry Birch to grease a wagon for him. Obligingly, the young Englishman took the can of grease and went to work. Soon, however, he was back asking for more.

"Why, Harry, I gave you enough grease to grease a dozen wagons. What happened to it?" asked the neighbor.

Harry looked puzzled. "Well, Sir," he replied, "I guess I put it on too heavy. I didn't have enough to quite cover the tongue." It was several years before Harry Birch lived down the joke.

TODAY Palomar Mountain has been claimed, surveyed, staked out, fenced off and "improved," but the visitor will still find historical sites if he is willing to get his boots dusty. The easiest, although far from the oldest, place to find is the old butterfly farm. It's located near the entrance to the State Park campgrounds, at the top of the mountain. Although the main ranch house has been torn down, four shingled cottages are still standing. A neglected apple orchard is located right beside the road. The apple ranch was bought in 1913 by Mr. and Mrs. W. F. Hewlett. The Hewletts had two children, Esther and a young boy. Since the neighbors lived far away, the children amused themselves by chasing and collecting the butterflies which abounded in the apple orchard.

One day Esther noticed a magazine article, Butterfly Farming. Curious, she wrote to the author and received the information she needed to raise her own butterflies. Soon the Hewlett children were in the butterfly business. Several years later the family left the mountain, but they stayed in the business, with a few changes. Instead of raising butterflies, they set up a family art business, putting original butterfly designs on lamp shades, trays, and other articles. The Hewlett women worked out many original crochet patterns of butterflies which have appeared in national needlework magazines.

ONE OF THE most interesting and beloved characters of Palomar Mountain was a scruffy old ex-slave. He was known all over San Diego County as Nigger Nate, or Uncle Nate. Today he's referred to by his full name, Nathan Harrison. One of the first roads to be built up the mountain was named for him,* and for years it affectionately and officially carried the name Nigger Nate Grade. It's still known locally by that name, but officially has been renamed Nathan Harrison Grade. Today it's a favorite trail, bike and jeep road and gives the hardy adventurer a superb and unique view of the rich citrus groves in the valley below.

Nate lived at a bend in the road. The site of his cabin is now marked by a four-foot rock monument dedicated to "the first white man on the mountain." This was the way Uncle Nate referred to himself. He meant he was the first non-Indian to live there.

For years Uncle Nate was "seventy-six years old next New Years." Then one day some young rascals got him drunk and told him he was "one hundred and seven years old last Fourth of July," and that was his age until he died.

AT THE TOP of the Nathan Harrison Grade is Doane Valley. Much of the valley is now occupied by the State Park campgrounds, but it was originally named for Mr. George Doane, the Romeo of the mountain. After a far-reaching but unsuccessful search for a "schoolmarm" bride, Doane advertised in a national publication and received a number of replies. He selected one, went to Louisiana and married her. Returning to his homestead at the top of the mountain with his new bride and her Negro maid, Doane stopped to introduce the women to Uncle Nate. Nate looked the women over carefully and turned to Mr. Doane. "So this here's your new wife," he drawled. Then in all innocence he blinked his watery old eyes, shifted a twig to the other side of his mouth, and asked, "Which one is the bride?"

PALOMAR MOUNTAIN has seen romance, but it has also seen tragedy. Dyche Valley, located at the east end of the mountain on State Highway S6, was the scene of the murder of the original homesteader there, Long Joe Smith. Long Joe was well-liked, and for years Palomar was known as Smith Mountain in his honor. The culprit who murdered him was an English seaman whom Smith had befriended.

It's said that when the murder became known on the mountain the neighbors promptly captured the fellow and arranged to meet the constable at nearby Warner's Ranch so "the varmint could be brought to justice." While several neighbors were inside the ranch house arranging the matter with the constable, the other neighbors, including Uncle Nate, "got on with the justice." When the constable came outside to take charge of his prisoner he saw the fellow dangling four feet off the ground. Turning to the nearest group of men, he asked:

"What happened?"

Finally one of the men, with his hat in his hands, answered. "Well, I guess we orta've kept a better eye on him. This here fellow must've felt right sorry about murderin' poor old Long Joe, and he got hold of a rope and hung his-self." It saved the county the cost of a trial.

THE REMOTE ISOLATION which the early settlers of Palomar knew is broken today by a steady stream of campers and picnickers. The visitor can peer into the heavens at the observatory, or peek into the past on the wagon-rutted trails. But who can guarantee where the old trails lead?

Perhaps there are still. undiscovered cabins tucked away in the corners of Palomar Mountain, with more human interest stories hidden in them.

[High Country Magazine #29, Summer 1974]

A letter from Lloyd R. Bunnelle of La Verne, California, asking who named Mount San Jacinto, was published in the Spring 1973 issue of THE HIGH COUNTRY. It has taken more than a year to get the answer, but now Alvin B. Campbell of Los Angeles, reading back issues, has supplied this information, gleaned from Profile in Mountain History by John Robinson: The Cahuilla Indian name for the mountain was Aya Kaich, meaning Smooth Cliffs. When padres from Mission San Luis Rey established a cattle ranch west of the mountain about 1820, they called it Rancho San Jacinto, honoring Saint Hyacinth, a Dominican missionary credited with many conversions in Tibet and China. The entire valley in which the rancho was located soon assumed the same name, as did the river which flows through the valley. It was only natural then that the 10,805-foot mountain which forms an eastern bulwark to the valley, and which feeds the river, should become known as Mount San Jacinto.

People of Anza
Kamp Anza