Pablo Apis (1792–1854) was born a
Luiseño and at age six was among the first indigenous people baptized at the
Mission San Luis Rey.[2] Apis learned to read and write in
Spanish and eventually rose to a position of leadership in which he was the principal spokesman for the local Luiseños.[2] After the missions became secularized in the 1830s, more indigenous people came to live in Temecula, an outpost of Mission San Luis Rey. Apis was one of the Luiseño leaders who fought to keep the Californios from taking control of the mission.[3] Apis was imprisoned for a short time in 1836 by Pío Pico, at that time administrator of Mission San Luis Rey, for objecting to Pico's management of the mission.[2][5]
In 1843, Apis was given the Temecula area, including the established village center, by Father
José María de Zalvidea, a priest briefly in control of the former mission and its lands.[2] Zalvidea appears to have undertaken an initiative to grant native peoples their village lands—other such grants made by Zalvidea include
Rancho Guajome and
Rancho Cuca. Apis applied for formal ownership of the one-by-one-half-league Rancho Little Temecula grant in 1845 in return for his assistance to the mission.[6] In 1847, Apis was a participant in the
Temecula Massacre.[7]
With the
cession of California to the United States following the
Mexican–American War, the 1848
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo provided that the land grants would be honored. As required by the Land Act of 1851, a claim for Rancho Little Temecula was filed with the
Public Land Commission in 1852,[8][9] but American settlers were not in favor of any indigenous people owning land, and used a variety of procedural tactics to impede the claim's progress.[2] Apis died between 1853 and 1855 before the Commission had decided its fate. In 1856, Isaac Williams, the holder of
Rancho Santa Ana del Chino to the north and the parent of grandsons of Apis, helped carry the Little Temecula grant through the court, which decided possession in favor of Apis's daughter and Williams's wife, Maria Antonio Apis.[2] Williams died the same year.
In 1872, Louis Wolf, pioneer storekeeper of Temecula, acquired the Apis grant.[10] The grant was patented to Pablo Apis in 1873.[11] In 1873, Juan Murrieta, Domingo Pujol and Francisco Zanjuro went in together to buy the grant.[2] Two years later, the San Diego County Sheriff forced the indigenous people from their homes in Temecula and led them to what is now known as the
Pechanga Indian Reservation.[2]
In 1904 Walter L. Vail, already a successful ranch owner in Arizona, started buying ranch land in the Temecula Valley; buying
Rancho Santa Rosa,
Rancho Temecula,
Rancho Pauba and the northern half of Rancho Little Temecula.
Historic sites of the Rancho
Apis Adobe
Apis built two adobes on his land; the second is still referred to as the Apis Adobe. Apis built the later adobe house on the south side of Temecula Creek at the point where the road, part of the
Southern Emigrant Trail, crossed the creek to the north side of the creek, just upstream from the Luiseño village on the creek. In 1858, the Apis Adobe had become the location of the Temecula stagecoach station of the
Butterfield Overland Mail.[12][13] The foundation of the building was studied and archaeologically excavated in 1989, in anticipation of new development. In 1990, the adobe site was bulldozed.[3][14]
Wolf Store
The Wolf Store was built by Louis Wolf on the north bank of Temecula Creek, on the west side of the place where the old road from
Los Angeles to
Fort Yuma crossed the creek. It was directly across the creek from the old Luiseño village and northwest of the Apis Adobe, the former Butterfeild Overland Mail stage station. It was the center of the old settlement of
Temecula before the town relocated to the west along the railroad. Later the building was incorporated into the Vail Ranch headquarters; the store still remains, but is in need of restoration.[15]
^Ogden Hoffman, 1862, Reports of Land Cases Determined in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, Numa Hubert, San Francisco
^Tom Hudson, Sam Hicks, 1970,They Passed This Way: Tales of Historic Temecula Valley at the Crossroads of California's Southern Immigrant Trail, Temecula, CA, Laguna House
Los Angeles – Located 12 miles southeast of Cahuenga Station in the
pueblo of Los Angeles. The 2nd Division headquarters was in a brick building, consisting of an office, blacksmith shop, stables and sheds.
Sackett's Wells – a later station, located 171⁄2 miles east southeast of Carrizo Creek Station, 15 miles west northwest of Indian Wells.
Indian Wells Station – Located 32 miles southeast of Carisso Creek, near present day
Heber, no water except at station.
New River Station – a later station, located 15 miles southeast of Indian Wells Station, in
Baja California, 14 miles west of Alamo Mocho Station, in present day
Mexicali.
Alamo Mocho Station – Located south of the Mexican border in
Baja California, 38 miles east of Indian Wells Station, no water except at station.
Gardner's Wells Station – a later station, located south of the Mexican border in
Baja California, 9 miles east of Alamo Mocho and 9 miles west of Seven Wells.