Driving tourFreeWander freely

Tiburcio Vasquez Driving Tour

An audio tour that plays itself. Each story starts as you drive past the place it happened.

Drive old stage routes, valleys, and backroads with geo-located photos and audio tracing Tiburcio Vasquez’s story from Monterey and San Jose toward the mountains and roads of Southern California and back.

8Stops

Wander freelyDistance

10mNarration

Written by historians, never AIResearched & written by Marc Striegel

Start free See the route

On the ground

How a tour plays

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Get the app, pick this tour, and download it. Everything works offline after that.

Drive or walk the route

Follow the route with your phone in your pocket. Nothing to tap.

Stories start on their own

Each one begins the moment you reach the place it's about.

Researched & written by

Marc Striegel

About this tour

Behind this route

Follow Tiburcio Vasquez across an Alta California of sparse settlements, old stage routes, and lonely horse trails through valleys that can still feel far from the main road. This driving tour begins with his birth into a well-respected family overlooking Monterey Bay, when Monterey was the capital, then traces the roads of El Camino Real, stagecoach country, Central Valley hold-ups, and the route back to San Jose, where his story ended on the gallows.

The route

See where each story lives

Story locations, not a set order — visit them however your day goes. Off-path points are marked separately.

driving tour

8 stops

Wander freely in any order

What you'll hear along the way

Stop 1

The Life and Times of Tiburcio Vasquez

Born in 1835 in Monterey, California, a sleepy hamlet of adobe buildings and a customs house with around one thousand inhabitants. Soon to be the capitol of all of California, it maintained a population of around 1000 inhabitants until nearly 1880 - born in land belonging to Mexico most recently as it achieved independence from Spain, then the gold rush and finally statehood. Turbulent times describe his life's arch and are examined through his reported deeds in an effort to help 21st century eyes change focus to a 19th century setting in the now Golden State.

Stop 2

Tiburcio in Ventura County

Tiburcio works for Poli, owner of the lands of the Mission San Buenaventura, nearly 50000 acres and Tiburcio shears sheep as a borreguero. He has come south from Monterey and Salinas as he is a person of interest in the murder and robbery of ranchers Willamson and Wall west of present day Gonzalez.

Stop 3

Poso Chane (Poso de Chane) - 187,88; 225

A small village or jacal leftover from the Californio days along the trail to Sonora used by horse traders for centuries. This would be a regular place to water horses or change them and continue along your way. Very few anglos even 20 years after statehood.

Stop 4

Paicines - Tres Pinos - 213-223; diagram 217

Site of the murder for which Vasquez was convicted and hung. Small town at the meeting of the road to Panoche and the New Idria mines meets SR 25. 1873 8-26. Tres Pinos in the days of Tiburcio, location of Snyder hotel with store next door. robbery and murders - Tiburcio uses a henry rifle and kills two. pps 213-223; diag 217

Stop 5

Elizabeth Lake Stage Stop - Jim Heffner's place

Stop 6

San Juan Bautista - Plaza - 105,6;

The plaza was the gathering place for the small and historic town of San Juan. Built on a fault scarp of the San Andreas, the town seems more frozen in the time of the pastoral days of the Californios and their cattle on a thousand hills. The mission was founded by Father Lasuen in the 1700s and this central plaza hosted fandangos and bull and bear fights and gentle summer evenings under moonlight and guitar accompaniment from the balconies of the enclosing buildings.

Stop 7

San Emigdio jacal - 187,88; 213,14

Southernmost village in a chain of them along the western foothills of the San Joaquin valley. Watering holes which began as native american village sites and in the early days of statehood for California, were mainly inhabited by Californios and Sonorans and natives or a blend thereof.

Stop 8

San Juan Bautista in the 1860's and 1870's - 103-7

Tiburcio's mother, Dona Guadalupe moves here from Monterey in 1860 and Tiburcio is released from San Quentin in 1863. He will come to pastoral San Juan and work as a vaquero on the ranches nearby until 1867.

Out now

Go walk it.

Download the free History Cake app, open this tour, and each story plays itself as you reach the spot.