Soledad, Escondido Canyon, Ravena and Acton

Placerita Canyon and Soledad mines are linked. After Francisco Lopez' 1842 find becomes known, there is a miniature gold rush from Los Angeles which is very much a rancho-supporting settlement of only a few thousand people at the time. The gold at Placerita canyon is called placer gold because it is at or near the surface of current or former stream or river. Miners always head upstream from placer finds in hopes of finding the source of the gold or precious metal that has been washed downstream. This occurred in upstream Soledad and Acton and Ravenna. Mines were sunk into the hillsides and were initially rich but were nearly exhausted within a few decades and most miners rushed for easier pickings up north. A mostly spanish and mexican contingent is present at the mines in the 1860s and 1870s and the legendary bandit, Tiburcio Vasquez, visited the mining camps in the area. He and other bandits of the 1860s and 1870s often found refuge after depradations in the hispanic section of mining camps. Soledad was one of these and the legend that Vasquez rocks were a place he hid out is certainly possible but not confirmable.