El Monte, CA news and local guide

By the late 1840s the trail connected with the Santa Fe Trail, the Southern Emigrant Trail and the Mormon Road from Utah, and El Monte became a stopping place for Americans bound for the gold fields. The first permanent residents arrived around 1849 and 1850, mostly from Texas, Arkansas and Missouri, among them the families of Nicholas Schmidt, Ira W. Thompson, the Cuddebacks, J. Corbin and J. Sheldon, and they built prosperous farms along the river. In the 1850s the settlement was briefly called Lexington before returning to El Monte. At the crossroads of routes to Los Angeles, San Bernardino and the harbor at San Pedro, El Monte had a reputation as a rough town. Defense against raids and bandit gangs led to the formation of a militia, the Monte Rangers, in February 1854, and later local vigilantes known as the El Monte Boys formed posses, as in the 1857 hunt for the gang of Juan Flores and Pancho Daniel. The adobe Monte Station became a stop on the Butterfield Overland Mail in 1858. Sources Wikipedia: El Monte, California