Words and music: John Malcolm Penn - ©Radio Flyer Music
For more information: [email protected]
Dr. Dan Krieger writes:
Pacheco died defending the widely despised centralist Mexican governor of California, Manuel Victoria, at the First Battle of Cahuenga Pass in 1831. His widow, Romania Charily Pacheco Wilson was given the Rancho Sue land grant stretch more than twenty miles along the San Luis Obispo-Santa Barbara County line by Governor Alvarado. She married Captain John Wilson, a Scot Sea captain from the China trade whose ship, the Ayachuco is praised by Dana in Two Years Before the Mast. Wilson raised Pacheco's sons. Jose Antonio Romualdo Pacheco Jr. became the only California governor of Mexican American descent in the American period, serving a little under a year's term in 1875.

NO. 944 SITE OF FORT ROMUALDO PACHECO - In 1774, Spain opened an overland route from Sonora to California but it was closed by Yuma Indians in 1781. In 1822, Mexico attempted to reopen this route. Lt. Romualdo Pacheco and soldiers built an adobe fort at this site in 1825-26, the only Mexican fort in Alta California. On April 26, 1826, Kumeyaay Indians attacked the fort, killing three soldiers and wounding three others. Pacheco abandoned the fort, removing soldiers to San Diego.
Location: W bank of New River, S of Worthington Rd, 6-1/2 mi due W of City of Imperial

Lyrics:
FORT PACHECO
As one travels the Imperial Valley
A drive through the vast desert floor
It’s easy to pass by the history
And not know the battles before

On the western bank of New River
A little south of Worthington Road
A landmark tells of a fuerte
A place they called Fort Pacheco

Lets take a trip back in history
To the year of 1825
The land and people were hostile
It was all you could do to survive

Who were these souls that lived here in history
From San Diego’s old presidio
Only Mexican fort in alta California
It’s certain that we’ll never know

Though the battle was won it was futile
Too distant a fort to defend
This was a canyon they were to abandon
Never to come back again