Romance of the Ranchos — 1942

Joseph Chapman, remembered as the first American settler in California.

Henry Dalton, and how the city of Azusa came to be.

Jedediah Smith, 'the pathfinder of the Sierras' -- first man to reach California overland, and jailed for doing it.

Rancho La Puente and the two men who started it, William Workman and John Rowland.

Who first settled Santa Catalina and the other Channel Islands, and how those early footholds fared.

Hugo Reid, a Scottish adventurer whose marriage to an Indian woman scandalized San Gabriel and Santa Anita.

Rancho La Ballona -- today's Culver City, Venice and the beach towns around them.

John Brown, called Juan Flaco, 'John the Lean,' rode with Fremont in the fight for California and made one of the great horseback rides in history -- for nothing.

Phineas Banning founded Wilmington, built a railroad, and earned the title of father of transportation in Southern California.

Rancho San Francisquito, where El Monte now stands, and the ranchers' battle against the squatters.

How Southern California got its water, and the engineering mind of William Mulholland.

The career of the outlaw Joaquin Murrieta, whom DigitalDeli's log titles "Infamous Robin Hood of The West."

Rancho San Pasqual, the 'Easter Day ranch,' now Pasadena and Altadena.

Don Juan Temple, and the rancho that Long Beach was later built on top of.

Rancho La Brea -- and the extraordinary things that came out of the tar pits on its land.

The Pueblo de Los Angeles itself -- how the city began and what it grew from.

Travel in California from oxcart to airliner.

The season signs off with the Carrillo family across early California history -- including the movie star Leo Carrillo -- and offers listeners a map of the old ranchos.