Security Guard in Santa Fe Springs, CA

Junípero Serra had started some missions in this area, especially the San Gabriel mission. By 1806, the natives, now called Gabrieleños than Sejats, were forced into labor to build the mission.

Corporal José Manuel Nieto, then 65 year old, petitioned Pedro Fages, the Governor, for a little land. In 1789, Fagas received official permission for the grant. Nieto’s was one of the largest at 300,000 acres (1,200 km²) , from the Pacific Ocean to the Puente Hills. This became known as the “Rancho La Zanja”, to which he moved with his wife Teresa and his son, Juan José. This area soon became a large cattle empire, and later would be the Santa Fe Springs area.

Dr. James E. Fulton came to the area as an agent for the San Gertrudes Land Company in 1871. He found, when drilling a well, a sulfur spring, and developed it by 1874 into a health spa with a 2-story sanitarium-hotel called Fulton’s Sulfur Wells in the area around what today would be Heritage Park. It included a windmill to draw water into the pool for bathers. In the beginning he had about 400 patients there annually. Later, in 1886, the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway purchased land from Fulton to run the train line from Los Angeles to San Diego, changing the town since now there was rail transportation.