Jack Powers - Battle of Arroyo Burro

Battle of Arroyo Burro

Powers seized control of an uninhabited structure in the Arroyo Burro (now San Roque Canyon, in the vicinity of Stevens Park at the Foothill Road bridge), and claimed it as his own, along with his company of bandits, many of whom were supported by the recently-arrived American residents of Santa Barbara. His gang of squatters fortified the place, ignoring calls to leave. Den won a judgment against them in district court. Powers even appealed to the California Supreme Court, but lost. The new sheriff, William W. Twist, was required by law to serve notice on them to leave, so he gathered a posse of 200 men at the Aguirre Adobe, at Carrillo and Anacapa Streets, to go to Arroyo Burro, about three miles away, and evict them.

Powers was not one to wait: seizing the initiative, he sent a small band of his outlaws to disrupt the organization and assassinate the sheriff. Reaching the Aguirre Adobe, one of them fired one shot at the district attorney, who had just stepped out of the building, putting a hole in his hat; another stabbed Sheriff Twist in the back, seriously injuring him; but a barrage of gunfire from the assembled force brought both outlaws down and the others ran, with the posse in pursuit.

The posse arrived out-of-breath at Arroyo Burro Canyon, to be met with a hail of bullets, and stopped short. After a brief negotiation, Powers informed the leader of the posse (Twist, injured, had stayed behind) that his gang would kill any man that passed a huge sycamore tree (the "Outlaw Tree", still standing at 134 North Ontare, not far from State Street). Seeing that the bandits were dug in, well-armed, and determined, the posse backed away in defeat.

Powers continued his highway robbing in the vicinity, but not for long. He abandoned his camp in Arroyo Burro when he heard that a band of better-organized and uniformed vigilantes, similar to the one that had defanged the "Hounds" in the Barbary Coast, was riding down from San Luis Obispo to eliminate him (according to another source, he heard that a company of U.S. Marines was on its way). By the time the vigilantes reached Santa Barbara, he was gone, leaving behind nothing but the persistent legend of buried treasure which accompanies most hurried bandit exits. However Powers and his gang continued to plague the central coast under Pio Linares while Powers moved to Los Angeles.

Twist later recovered from his knifing, but along with the mayor he resigned in 1855 due to the continued lawlessness in the area, lack of competent backup, and an anti-Anglo backlash. While a judge occasionally issued arrest warrants, there was no one to carry them out until later in the decade. At one point, California Governor John Bigler dispatched a U.S. Navy warship to Santa Barbara to restore order.