The Legend of Avelino Martinez
Avelino Martinez was of Mexican, Indian and Chinese descent, four feet-four inches tall and thirteen years of age when he came with a group of drovers to the United States from Sonora, Mexico, searching for his father. He worked as a groom for horses in one of legendary outlaw Joaquin Murrieta's four horse gangs. Members would capture wild horses and then drive them back to the Sonora area of Mexico where rich ranchers were a ready market.
Most of Martinez's life from 1853, when Murrieta and his horse gangs were captured, until 1920, was spent working at Racho El Tejon where other ex-members of the Murrieta gangs were employed. He then worked for E. J. "Bud" Cummings at Cummings ranch in Tehachapi and was there at the time of his death on August 8, 1936 at a reported age of 112, the last of the Murrieta group. He was buried at the Westside Cemetery in Tehachapi. He lies north and south, rather than the customary east and west.
Marker is on East F Street, on the right when traveling east.
Courtesy hmdb.org
