Original Site of Los Angeles City Jail

201 North Spring Street 

The first Los Angeles City Jail was erected in 1860 alongside the first City Hall, on the corner of Franklin Street and Spring Street. While neither structure exists in this location any longer, the jail served as the site of several lynchings. Of the 352 lynchings that took place in Los Angeles between 1850-1860, 126 were of Mexican or Hispanic men in the 19th century. The majority of these lynchings occurred due to conflicts during the post-Mexican-American war era between Hispanic “desperados” (known as outlaws in English) and the Los Angeles Sheriffs. The desperados were often accused of murdering Sheriffs and the ensuing drama led to the lynchings of large groups of Mexicans, reflecting the residual animosity between the incoming Anglos and the Mexicans already situated in the area. By lynching the Hispanic men they deemed as “criminals,” “white Americans sought to extend the genius of American republican institutions over…Latin cultural and political institutions.” 

In the particularly infamous cases of Juan Flores and Pancho Daniel, the pair killed Sheriff Barton and several of his colleagues—but managed to evade capture. Frustrated by their escape, law enforcement caught four other Mexican men and lynched them for “aiding” Flores and Daniel, but none of the men were ever found to have any connection with the murder. Although the criminals were imprisoned in the jail cells, the lynchings actually occurred from the beams of the City Hall porch. These men were executed in the cruelest fashion. According to accounts, “two of the condemned men fell before the job was done, because the ropes were poorly fastened, and had to be shot.” The tale of these men’s suffering is not uncommon; there are many more accounts of similar lynchings that took place in LA, which was widely known for its vigilante justice against Mexicans during this time. 

The underlying source of tension between Mexicans and Americans in California was a result of the Mexican-American War that ended in 1848 with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in which Mexico lost a majority of its land. Over the course of the next few years, the Mexicans in California became “a despised minority in their own homeland.” The Mexican-American War was part of a larger attempt for Americans to exercise their belief in Manifest Destiny and conquer the land—and its inhabitants. The lynchings that took place in the next few decades were yet another effort to continue the subordination of Mexicans. Naming Mexican criminals “desperados” demonized them. Franklin Street, known as “Jail Street,” was built over during the construction of the California State Building—now demolished. In present day, a parking lot and Grand Park occupy the space where the jail formerly stood. The new establishments have no direct correlation to the jail and there is no evidence of its existence in the landscape. However, this is emblematic of the tensions that existed and continue to exist between Latinos and Anglos. Although many Hispanic men unjustly suffered and died on that land, their stories remain untold and hidden in the landscape of a beautiful city park, whose tagline is ironically: “The Park for Everyone.”

For More Information
Blew, Robert. "Vigilantism in Los Angeles, 1835-1874." Southern California Quarterly 54.1 (1972): 11-30. 

Gonzales-Day, Ken. Lynching in the West: 1850-1935. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006.