Placerita Canyon, Soledad 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. For perspective, there are about 8000 people living across all of Alta California, a Mexican province since 1826 and before that, a spanish province of rancheros and farmers and missionaries and native tribes.

The gold at Placerita canyon is called placer gold because it is at or near the surface of current or former stream or river. Legend has it Francisco had stopped to rest in the shade of an oak tree and in pulling up a wild onion stalk, saw flecks of gold in the dirt and roots. Now 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 as the gold flowed down the Santa Clara river you are driving beside. Mines were sunk into the hillsides and were initially rich in ore but were nearly exhausted within a few decades and most miners rushed for easier pickings up north after the Sutter's Mill find in 1848 and gold rush of 1849. The population of California went from 8000 to over 100,000 within months. And they came from all over the world...

By the 1860s, a mostly spanish and mexican contingent is present at the soledad mines in the Acton and Ravenna camps. We know that 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 their depradations in the hispanic sections of various mining camps. Soledad was one of these such camps and the legend holds that Vasquez rocks was a place he hid out. It is certainly possible but not confirmable. A cave is an uncomfortable place to stay compared to a busy mining camp where you wont stand out...