Historic California Posts: Camp Rancho Cucamonga

Historic California Posts, Camps, Stations and Airfields
Camp Rancho Cucamonga

Troops were camped on the grounds of this ranch, located near the town of Cucamonga, San Bernardino County, for two weeks, June 1 through June 15, 1864, because of civil unrest between Americans and Californios (Mexicans living in California) over the murders of John Rains, proprietor of the ranch, and Ramon Carillo, the paramour of Rains's wife Mercedes. Carillo had either directly or indirectly assassinated Rains on November 17, 1862, some 25 miles from his ranch. A year and a half later his widow married Carillo, who was murdered at Cucamonga on May 21, 1864, by friends of John Rains. Rancho Cucamonga, one of the most prosperous in the San Bernardino Valley, had been described as,
"the prettiest & most valuable rancho I have seen inhe west. There are 160,000 grape vines in the vineyard & apples, apricots. pears, peaches, wild cherries, figs, English walnuts & pomegranates in the orchard and springs that cover about 200 acres in an enclosed pasture of 500 acres, with good houses, cellars and out houses." (Diary of John W. Teal, ed. Henry P. Walker, Quarterly Journal of History, Spring 1971)


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