Security Guard in Rosemead, CA

Prior to the arrival of the Spanish, the area around Rosemead was populated by Native Americans known as the people of the willow houses or better known as the Kizh (pronounced Keech), alternatively Tongva or as the Spaniards renamed them, the Gabrieleños. In 1771, the Spanish founded the first Mission San Gabriel Arcángel in the area that was formally known as the village of Shevaangna or Siba what is [first Angeleno William McCawley 1996] now known as La Mision Veija or Whittier Narrows on the border between Montebello and Rosemead. In 1775, the mission moved to avoid the spring floods that ruined the first crops, to its present location in San Gabriel formally known as the village of Tovisvanga .

During the Spanish Colonial era, the area that is now the City of Rosemead was part of the land administered by the San Gabriel Mission. As part of the Mexican government’s Secularization Act of 1833, the land, formerly held by the Mission, was distributed to private citizens, requiring only that they build a house and graze cattle, bringing to an end the Mission Era Following the Mexican-American War and the 1848 signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe which transferred sovereignty over the territory now known as the State of California to the United States, Anglo-American immigration began to flow to the area. The southern part of Rosemead was part of Rancho Potrero Grande (Large Pasture) which was originally granted to a Native American man named Manuel Antonio, who was a “mayordomo” (overseer) at the San Gabriel Mission. The 4,431-acre (18 km²) ranch was later transferred to Juan Matias Sánchez.

In 1852, John and Harriet Guess moved cross-country in an ox drawn wagon, to the San Gabriel Valley from Conway County, Arkansas. In 1855, the couple camped where present-day Savannah Elementary School is located on Rio Hondo Avenue. They rented the land until 1867, when John Guess purchased 100 acres (0.4 km²) of a 1,164-acre (5 km²) ranch and named it Savannah. The land stretched from Valley Boulevard to Marshall Street, and from Rosemead Boulevard to the Eaton Wash.