Outlaws made travel by road on the Central Coast in the mid-1800s hazardous to your health. The term outlaw implies that there is some form of capable law enforcement but in 1850 California was a newborn state. Though San Luis Obispo was a charter county the mechanics of government were not yet effective. There were …
Tag Archive: vigilante
Jan 19
Vigilante Justice in Arroyo Grande
At first no one believed the school children, after all it was April Fools Day, 1886. As dawn broke in Arroyo Grande a man and his teen age son were dead, dangling from ropes below the narrow gauge railroad bridge. The children had seen the result of the only lynching documented in Arroyo Grande. The …


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