The Tres Pinos Massacre
A newspaper account of the night Tiburcio Vasquez's gang broke into Snyder's store at Tres Pinos — and left three men dead.
Last evening, at half past seven o’clock, eight men, the leader of whom is supposed to have been the notorious desperado, Tiburcio Vasquez, broke into the store of A. Snyder at Tres Pinos and stole $500 in coin, then proceeded to the hotel of Mr. Davis, whom they killed, besides murdering two other men, one sheep herder the other Portuguese, names unknown. At Snyder’s store they tied the clerk while they committed the robbery.
This “Tres Pinos Massacre,” as it came to be known, horrified the public and immediate efforts were made to capture Vasquez. Posse after posse followed leads throughout the Coast Range, where he was reported to be hiding, only to end at cold camp fires. One of his men, Moreno, was captured in Bitterwater.
Vasquez was eventually hanged in San Jose on March 24, 1875, with his last words being “Pronto! Quickly, please, quickly.”