Stockton, CA news and local guide

Charles Weber, born Karl David Weber in Steinwenden, Germany, on February 18, 1814, came to California with the Bartleson-Bidwell Party in 1841 and worked for John Sutter. As a foreigner he could not get a land grant, so his partner William Gulnac, a naturalized Mexican citizen, applied for Rancho Campo de los Franceses, 11 square leagues east of the San Joaquin River. Weber took over the grant in 1845. In the Mexican-American War he turned down a commission from the Mexican general Jose Castro and became a captain in the U.S. cavalry, which cost him the trust of his Mexican partners, and he moved to the rancho in 1847. When the Gold Rush began in 1848, Weber found that selling supplies to miners paid better than mining. At the head of navigation on the San Joaquin, the town grew fast as a river port and supply point for the southern mines, and it was nicknamed Mudville, Fat City and California's Sunrise Seaport. In 1849 Weber laid out a town he called Tuleburg but soon renamed it for Commodore Robert F. Stockton. It was the first community in California with a name neither Spanish nor Native American in origin. Weber built the first permanent house in the San Joaquin Valley, at what is now Weber Point, and he died in Stockton on May 4, 1881. Sources Wikipedia: Stockton, California