The history of Campo Valley is the history of Star Ranch. The two are strongly interwoven.  In my previous article, I identified the first non-indigenous visitor to the Campo Valley, Nathaniel Lyon, as the first general to die in battle during the Civil War.  Lyon’s 1851 journey did not go unforgotten.  In 1854, two Army veterans, Joseph Swycaffer and Sam Warnock, were awarded the contract to carry military mail from San Diego to Fort Yuma over the same route traveled by Lyon and discovered by the Kumeyaay Indians.  The horseback route of Swycaffer and Warnock, within a stone’s throw of Campo Valley and the Star Ranch, became the first US Mail route in southern California.  San Diego had hopes of becoming a transcontinental mail terminus, but President James Buchanan awarded this contract to his friend, John Butterfield, and the famous Overland Trail to San Francisco became the route-of-choice for western mail service to the East.  However, despite the Overland Trail, Lyon’s road to Fort Yuma would later become an important stage route.  

Disastrous rains followed by overwhelming floods hit the region from late 1861 until early 1862. Campo Creek swelled and the eastern meadows of what will later be known as Star Ranch filled with torrential rains.  Mother Nature struck a triple blow with a major earthquake having a magnitude 6.0 that same year.

In 1862, Congress passed one of the most important pieces of legislation in the history of the United States that would effect the West, California, Campo Valley, and Star Ranch forever.  The Homestead Act declared that any citizen or intended citizen could claim 160 acres of surveyed government land. Claimants must build a home on it and farm the land for five years. After five years, if the original claimant was still on the land, he owned it, free and clear.  What did the new settler have to pay for 160-acres of land?  $18.00!  About 11 cents an acre! Compare that with today’s price tag.  An acre then costs at least that amount for a square foot of land today. The Homestead Act almost didn’t get approved. Buchanan, the same President who gave his close friend, Butterfield, the contract for a US Mail route that bypassed San Diego, vetoed the Homestead Act.  Fortunately, Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act into law, and the migration westward began despite a Civil War brewing in the East. 

In 1863, a smallpox epidemic hit the San Diego region killing hundreds of Native Americans and Mexicans in Southern California.  Campo Valley had not been settled yet.

When the smallpox epidemic came to an end, settlers began arriving to the valley from Texas, each purchasing a parcel of land through the Homestead Act.  Five years later, the population of the Campo Valley grew to 400. Because so many had moved here from Texas, the Campo Valley acquired the nickname “Little Texas”. 

Interestingly enough, the most famous of the original settlers were not Texans. The earliest settlers, Charles Cameron and Joseph Warren, began cattle and sheep ranching in the valley in 1865. Cameron, a native of Scotland, arrived in Campo from Yuma, and Warren was a native Californian.  Silas and Lumen Gaskill, arrived in 1868 from Michigan and Indiana. Silas was the pioneer who forever changed the name of the valley from the Indian word, Milquatay to Campo, which is Spanish for meadow. The Gaskills’ cattle grazed on the meadows of Star Ranch.  Lumen and Silas were certainly well-rounded individuals. In addition to growing orchards and vineyards in San Bernardino before moving to the Campo Valley, they were blacksmiths and noted bear hunters.  Both men became millers and innkeepers.  Lumen later became a banker, marshal, justice of the peace, dentist, and doctor. ‘Doctor’ Lumen was probably not the best local doctor for curing “what ails ya” although many residents of the Campo Valley sought his medical advice.  For example, Lumen’s cure for an earache was to roast an onion and stick it deep into your ear while it was still hot. The Gaskills developed apiaries (beehives) throughout the valley and by 1868, Campo was the second largest producer of honey in the country generating as many as 30 tons in one summer.  The Gaskills are probably most famous for being storekeepers.  Their “Stone Store” still stands at the southern end of Star Ranch. 

Within months after California statehood, lawmakers enacted legislation appointing ‘Judges of the Plains’ (Jueces del Campo) and defining their duties. Cattle and sheep traveled great distances from the east and had to pass through homesteads owned by such ranchers as the Gaskills, Camerons, and Warrens. One of the duties of the Judges of the Plains was to inspect the brands and the amount of newly arriving stock.   Fences had not yet been constructed so the chances for intentionally or unintentionally incorporating stray cattle or sheep into a herd or flock were very possible.   Horses, too, were equally as important to the San Diego region’s economy as other livestock.
To help resolve ownership issues, by law, ranchers were required to hold an annual spring or early summer rodeo. The branding of a rancher's new herd of calves and other newly acquired stock could not be performed legally until he notified neighboring ranchers and held a rodeo. The event became the opportunity for local ranchers to examine everyone’s stock to determine rightful ownership.  The Judges of the Plains were expected to attend each rodeo and to decide disputes about ownership and brands. Once inspected, the rodeo owner may brand his cattle. 
The rodeo season featured many days and nights of eating, drinking, dancing and oftentimes extravagant socializing. The Judges of the Plains almost always took turns as host. Juan Bandini, before his death in 1859, was often one of the invited guests to many of the earlier rodeo dances. In fact, Bandini is noted for introducing the waltz to San Diego in 1820.  One interesting fact regarding San Diego County women was chronicled by a local shop owner: "Though they might not be able to read, the California girls were great dancers, and they excel any girls I ever saw. They likewise beat all creation in eating. A party of 20 California girls will eat more than 100 American girls" For years, Star Ranch and the Kiwanis have carried on this tradition of the ‘social dance’ at its barn in the ranch’s central valley.  Not wanting to break with tradition, the San Diego County and Campo Valley women are still ‘great dancers’. 
Earlier I mentioned the importance of the trek made famous by Army veterans, Swycaffer and Warnock.  Within fifteen years of their first US Mail route, the stagecoaches of John G. Capron opened (1869) along their route.  They stopped in Campo on twice weekly runs to and from Tucson. Capron recalled many stories of his troubles with the Apache Indians in Arizona; but, according to Capron, the Campo band of Kumeyaay Indians were most peaceful. The 10-mule freight wagons that kept Fort Yuma supplied were also routed through Campo.