Jack Powers - Santa Barbara - Rise To Power

Rise To Power

It was a profitable choice of employment, for he intended to be a highwayman. De la Guerra owned numerous ranches along the length of El Camino Real, all with good horses; charged with their care, and out of sight of his employer, he could do what he wanted. When Salomon Pico's band was broken up in 1851, Powers brought its remnants together under his own leadership. Powers arranged for fast horses to be available at points along the route to assist him and his gang with getaways. During this period, ranchers were making a fortune on the gold fields – not on ore, but on selling cattle to the hungry mining camps at an enormous profit. After driving their cattle north from the ranches of Santa Barbara County, they would return with their baggage full of gold dust or "octagonals" – gold ingots or "slugs" worth fifty dollars – and in the lawless climate these travelers were a tempting target.

The sheriff in Santa Barbara at the time was Valentine Hearne, who shared Powers' hatred of the Hispanic residents from whom the town had so recently been taken. He gave little resistance to Powers, as Powers and his "Band of Five" began what historian Walker A. Tompkins described as a "reign of terror" that lasted until approximately 1855. During this period, in which Powers and his gang were active as highway robbers up and down El Camino Real, the route connecting the old Mission towns, the stretch from Santa Barbara to San Luis Obispo was notorious as the most dangerous place to travel in California. Mutilated bodies appeared regularly along the road; Powers had the uncanny knack for appearing in the gambling halls of Los Angeles or elsewhere almost instantly after a new murder along the route, fooling people into thinking he was uninvolved: but what they did not know was that he always had fresh and fast horses ready at strategic points along the trail. Yet suspicion persisted because some of the eyewitnesses told tales of magnificent horsemanship by one of the masked bandits – a skill Powers had earlier been too proud to hide.

Matters came to a head in 1853. Powers was confident enough to cease his banditry and come into the open, and he seized the Mission Santa Inés along with the adjacent Rancho San Marcos. This fertile and profitable operation was leased to prominent local rancher Nicolas A. Den, coincidentally a fellow Irishman who had come to California during Mexican times. Powers attempted to steal the cattle from the ranch but Den caught them during the attempted roundup, and with an armed force he humiliated Powers, making him run for his life, and recovering all the cattle in the process. Powers, not one to turn the other cheek, came back for Den – but not right away.