Part 1 Glimpses of Arroyo Grande's History

A four-part episodic take on the history of Arroyo Grande, California. Former mountain man, New Yorker Francis Branch, the town's founder, settled the 17,00-acre Rancho Santa Manuela in 1837. The Branches--Francis, Manuela, a baby girl and a baby boy on the way--were thoroughly outnumbered by local grizzly bears, but they stuck it out. By 1860, Branch was the wealthiest men in San Luis Obispo County--until an 1862 drought decimated the thousands of cattle he ran on his ranches. The Gold Rush ushered in an era of lawlessness that persisted, if occasionally, for the next fifty years. "Civilizing" the town came in the person of schoolteacher Clara Edwards Paulding, a woman who was both disciplined and loving, and who was as much a pioneer as Branch was.