Pre-1800s , a Mexican-era
rancho grant. The area, beside the
San Gabriel River, is part of the homeland of the
Tongva people as it has been for thousands of years. The Spanish
Portolá expedition of missionaries and soldiers passed through the area in 1769–1770.
Mission San Gabriel Arcángel was the center of colonial activities in the area. The site was within the
Mexican land grant Rancho La Puente.
1800s The
Old Spanish Trail trade route was first established by
Antonio Armijo in 1829. It passed through El Monte to its terminus at the Mission San Gabriel via what is now
Valley Boulevard. The trade was woolen and other products from New Mexico for California horses and mules. Using the Old Spanish Trail route at the end of 1841, a group of travelers and settlers, now referred to as the
Workman-Rowland Party, arrived in the
Pueblo of Los Angeles and this area in
Alta California from
Santa Fe de Nuevo México. Rowland and Workman became grantees of the Rancho La Puente in 1845. The Old Spanish Trail from
Santa Fe was continued east via the
Santa Fe Trail trade route, established in 1821 as a trail and wagon road connecting
Kansas City in
Missouri Territory to Santa Fe, still within México. From 1847, the Santa Fe Trail was also connected westward through the
Southern Emigrant Trail, and in 1848 by the
Mormon Road from Utah, passing by the El Monte area, to the Pueblo of Los Angeles. Immigrant settlement began in 1848, El Monte was a stopping place for the American immigrants going to the gold fields during the
California Gold Rush. The first permanent residents arrived in El Monte around 1849–1850 mostly from
Texas,
Arkansas and
Missouri, during a time when thousands migrated to California in search of gold. The first settlers with families were Nicholas Schmidt, Ira W. Thompson, G. and F. Cuddeback, J. Corbin, and J. Sheldon. These migrants ventured upon the bounty of fruitful, rich land along the
San Gabriel River and began to build homesteads there. The farmers were very pleased at the increasing success of El Monte's agricultural community, and it steadily grew over the years. After the Monte Rangers disbanded, justice for
Los Angeles County, in the form of volunteer
posses, as in the 1857 hunt for the bandit gang of
Juan Flores and
Pancho Daniel, or a
lynching, was often provided by the local vigilantes called the "El Monte Boys". In 1858 the adobe Monte Station was established, a stagecoach stop on the
Butterfield Overland Mail Section 2 route. By 1861 El Monte had become a sizeable settlement, and during the
American Civil War was considered a Confederate stronghold sympathetic to the
secession of Southern California from California to support the
Confederate States of America.
A. J. King an Undersheriff of Los Angeles County (and former member of the earlier "Monte Rangers" or "Monte Boys") with other influential men in El Monte, formed a secessionist militia company, like the
Los Angeles Mounted Rifles, called the Monte Mounted Rifles on March 23, 1861. However, the attempt failed when following the
battle of Fort Sumter, A. J. King marched through the streets with a portrait of the Confederate General
P. G. T. Beauregard and was arrested by a
U.S. Marshal. State arms sent from Governor
John G. Downey for the unit were held up by Union officers at the port of
San Pedro. Union troops established
New Camp Carleton near the town in March 1862 to suppress any rebellion, it was shut down three years later at the end of the war. El Monte was listed as a township in the 1860 and 1870 Censuses, with a population of 1,004 in 1860 and 1,254 in 1870. The 1860 township comprised several of the old ranchos in the El Monte area, including
Rancho Potrero Grande,
Rancho La Puente and
Rancho La Merced. (This area presently includes the cities of El Monte,
Monterey Park and
La Puente, among others). The 1870 census added in the former Azusa township.
Southern Pacific built a railroad depot in town in 1873, stimulating the growth of local agriculture.
1900s El Monte was incorporated as a municipality in 1912. During the 1930s, the city became a vital site for the
New Deal's federal Subsistence Homestead project, a
Resettlement Administration program that helped grant single-family ranch houses to qualifying applicants. It became home to many 1930s white Americans from the
Dust Bowl Migration. Photographer
Dorothea Lange took over a dozen photographs of the newly built Homestead homes for her work for the
Farm Security Administration in Feb. 1936. Lange stopped in El Monte a month before she took her most well-known photograph from the period, the
Migrant Mother. "In contrast to the apparently positive scene in El Monte... in San Luis Obispo County, Lange captured a far gloomier scene of a Native-American mother with her children." San Gabriel Valley in Time observed. The city has evolved into a majority
Hispanic community. Representing the historical significance of the
Santa Fe Trail, El Monte built the
Santa Fe Trail Historical Park in 1989, at Valley Blvd and Santa Anita Ave. The El Monte Historical Museum at 3150 Tyler Avenue is considered to be one of the best community museums in the state of California. ==Geography==