Jack Powers

Jack Powers, (1827 – October 26, 1860), whose real name was John A. Power, was an Irish born migrant taken to New York as a child, a soldier in the Mexican American War, serving in the garrison of California. During the California Gold Rush, he was a well known professional gambler and a famed horseman, in San Francisco, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. He had two brushes with the law. Once being tried as a member of The Hounds, in San Francisco in 1849, and once in a dispute over land ownership of a ranch in Santa Barbara County in 1853. In 1856, at Santa Barbara, Powers had protected a fugitive from the vigilantes of San Francisco and helped him to escape. After his role was revealed the following year he had difficulties with the vigilantes at Los Angeles, who accused him of being the leader of a criminal gang there. Long known for his skills as a horseman, on May 2, 1858, his skills were demonstrated in a record breaking 150-mile time over distance race. Soon after this race, he was accused by San Luis Obispo vigilantes of complicity in the 1857 murder of two men, and of being the head of the bandit gang, that plagued the southern central coastal region of California, along the El Camino Real with robberies and murders in San Luis Obispo County and Santa Barbara County between 1853 and 1858. This gang was later named the Jack Powers Gang in 1883, by Jesse D. Mason in his History of Santa Barbara County California. Escaping the vigilantes, by fleeing to Sonora, Powers attempted to return to California in 1860, but was murdered and robbed by his vaqueros at Calabasas just inside Arizona Territory.