Butterfield Valley is a valley along the course of
Temecula Creek
Temecula Creek, formerly known as the Temecula River, runs U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed March 16, 2011 through southern Riverside County, California, United States, pas ...
Vail Lake
Vail Lake is a large reservoir in western Riverside County, southern California.
Geography
It is located on Temecula Creek, in the Butterfield Valley, south of Oak Mountain, of the Black Hills, in the Santa Margarita River watershed. It is app ...
. It heads at and its mouth is at the site of the Vail Lake Dam at the head of the deep canyon Temecula Creek has cut through Oak Mountain to the
Pauba Valley Pauba Valley is a valley along the course of Temecula Creek, in Riverside County, California.
It heads to the east at , the mouth of the gorge of Temecula Creek Canyon at the foot of Oak Mountain. Its mouth in the west is at an elevation of , w ...
.
History
The original name of Butterfield Valley, found on the first topographic map of the region, was "Nigger Valley" and was not renamed by the U. S. Geological Survey until 1970. It was named after Jim Hamilton, an
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
man who settled there as a squatter on the east end of the Rancho Pauba in the later 1860s. The 1870 census of
Temecula
Temecula (; es, Temécula, ; Luiseño: ''Temeekunga'') is a city in southwestern Riverside County, California, United States. The city had a population of 110,003 as of the 2020 census and was incorporated on December 1, 1989. The city is a ...
Cahuilla
The Cahuilla , also known as ʔívil̃uqaletem or Ivilyuqaletem, are a Native American people of the various tribes of the Cahuilla Nation, living in the inland areas of southern California.Anza Valley, which was first known as the ''Hamilton Plain''. Hamilton Creek, originating east of Anza, still bears his name. Hamilton School in Anza was also named after him. The school has been divided into a
K-8 School K8 or K-8 may refer to:
* K-8 (Kansas highway), two highways in Kansas, one in northern Kansas, one in southern Kansas
* K-8 school, a type of school that includes kindergarten and grades one through eight
* AMD K8, the internal designation for the ...
and Hamilton High School since 2006–2007.
Hamilton was married to a Native American woman and had three sons. Two became U. S. Marshals, and one was killed in the line of duty at
San Jacinto, California
San Jacinto ( ; ; Spanish for " St. Hyacinth") is a city in Riverside County, California. It is located at the north end of the San Jacinto Valley, with Hemet to its south and Beaumont, California, to its north. The mountains associated with ...