The Triunfo Canyon was a very pleasant place to camp and many people came there to stay over night or maybe for several weeks. Also there was an old arrastra 1 under a tree nearby. A ditch carrying water from the Triunfo Creek ran by there. At the extreme east end of our place was a mound which at one time had been an adobe house. Furthermore, his title for the ranch came from a Mexican grant and these titles granted the mineral rights to the owner. The first man drew up and after greetings said, “We have come to file on gold claims.” This amazed my father still more because he knew nothing about any gold ore in our vicinity. He stood in the road waiting for the procession to reach him. In the early light he glanced up the road one morning and saw a rig coming and went out to see who was coming and possibly ask him to dinner-but before the rig turned off the road towards our place and had come very far, to his amazement he saw not only one rig turning but what seemed to be dozens of them-carts, buggies, spring wagons, etc. My father was very hospitable and anyone coming our way that he got into a conversation with, he generally asked to stay for dinner never for breakfast as he could not conceive of breakfast after 5:00 A.M. In the days before the automobile, if we saw a rig coming down our way, we could be about sure it was coming to our place-while the road past our place went on into the Potrero, most people came there over another road.

In fact there were two, although one was for buried treasure and was not so much of a rush as a search over a good many years for hidden treasure. Of course the history of California is replete with various stories of gold rushes and stampedes, not so much in Southern California as in the north however, the Conejo had a gold rush all of its own.

California gold rush museum