Set Them Free
In 1865, Greek George married Maria Cornelia Lopez, a 30-year-old widow and a member of a prominent Californio family. (Californios were descendants of 18th-century settlers, mostly of Spanish origin, in what was then the Mexican territory of Alta California.) Around this time, he became a U.S. citizen and legally changed his name to George Allen. George and Cornelia had a son, George Jr., in 1866 and a daughter in May 1874.
George’s job tending the camels for Major Hancock ended the following year when the coming of transcontinental railroads made his planned dromedary transport line obsolete. Hancock cut his losses and ordered Greek George to set the camels free. After George let them wander off, they and their descendants roamed the Hollywood Hills for decades.
Runyon Canyon
Jobless again, George decided to go into farming. To buy farmland, he applied for an Army pension based on his seven years of service with the camel corps. The Army denied the request, as it would every time he reapplied. In 1867, as a consolation prize, the U.S. government deeded him 160 acres of seemingly useless land in the ominously named No Man’s Canyon. Today, part of that property is Runyon Canyon Park, a popular urban hiking area half a mile north of Hollywood Boulevard.
George and Cornelia divided their time between farming on their new property and running the adobe cabin, which they operated as a waystation providing services to travelers. The cabin was located about halfway along the 15-mile rutted dirt track that connected Los Angeles and Santa Monica, a precursor to today’s Santa Monica Boulevard. For drivers delivering wagonloads of goods, the trip could take a full day, and the waystation was a convenient stop for lunch and for food and water for their horses.
Lopez Station
Ten years after George and the camels arrived, his cabin in the willows became the site of the capture of Tiburcio Vasquez, a notorious bandit-turned-killer and the most-wanted outlaw in the West. His arrest made headlines in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and newspapers across the country.
It’s likely that Greek George and Tiburcio Vasquez first crossed paths around 1872 at Lopez Station, a tavern and inn in San Fernando. The proprietors were George’s wife’s aunt and uncle, Geronimo and Catalina Lopez. The Lopezes were prominent figures in the San Fernando Valley and Los Angeles. Geronimo was a descendant of Claudio Lopez, who had been mayor of Los Angeles in the 1820s. As the patriarch of the Lopez family in the area, Geronimo had strong ties to upper-class Californio families statewide.
Geronimo and Catalina hosted family gatherings that George and Cornelia attended in San Fernando. According to the memoir of J.J. Lopez, Geronimo’s and Catalina’s son, Tiburcio Vasquez was also a frequent visitor at Lopez Station.
However they met, the two men became friends, and Vasquez became a regular visitor at George’s waystation. Vasquez, known for his charm and notorious for seducing women, was drawn to George’s beautiful sister-in-law, Modesta, who worked at the cabin.
Vasquez had a network of women, like Modesta, whom he relied on during his travels through Central and Southern California. Barmaids, unmarried women, married women, and sex workers alike fell for his devilish good looks, his courtly manners, and his talent for singing and dancing. His sexual appetites often got him into trouble, so it was not surprising that a seduction that broke a sexual taboo led to his undoing at Greek George’s cabin in the spring of 1874.