The son of a Spanish artillery sergeant, Pico was born on May 5, 1801 at Mission San Gabriel. His 93 year life spanned several distinct periods of Southern California history, from Spanish colonialism to Mexican rule and from American conquest to L.A.'s late-nineteenth-century growth spurt.

Over the course of his life, Pico accumulated great wealth and land-holdings. For many years he and his brother Andres, another leading figure of Mexican California, owned Rancho Santa Margarita y Las Flores, an immense tract in northern San Diego County that today is Camp Pendleton. Pico also individually owned large estates near Whittier and in the San Fernando Valley.

Pico served twice as governor of California; great upheaval marked both of his terms, and in each case Pico succeeded an ousted governor.

In 1831, a dispute over California's mission lands escalated into an open revolt against the rule of Governor Manuel Victoria, who refused to secularize the missions. Victoria and the rebels, led by wealthy landowners, met on a plain near Cahuenga Pass on December 5, 1831. The ensuing Battle of Cahuenga Pass was mostly bloodless, but in a bizarre sequence of events Victoria was seriously injured. He fled, leaving his office vacant. As the senior member of the territorial legislature, Pico became governor by default. Victoria's hand-picked successor disputed Pico's claim to the office, however, and his tenure lasted only twenty days. But Pico had established himself as a leading political figure in California and, within a year and a half, the process of secularizing the missions had begun.

Thirteen years later, Pico succeeded another deposed governor. Appointed by the authorities in Mexico City, Governor Manuel Micheltorena found himself facing open rebellion by Californios who wanted a native-born resident to hold the office. Again, the governor's forces met the rebels in battle near Cahuenga Pass, and again a relatively bloodless battle, the Battle of La Providencia, forced the governor's ouster in 1845. Pico became acting governor and was duly appointed as Micheltorena's permanent successor in April 1846.

By then the dark clouds of war hung over California. With designs on California and other northern territories of Mexico, the United States declared war on May 13. When news of the war reached California, the fall of Mexican California was swift. The American captured Monterey on July 15, prompting Pico to issue this proclamation:

Pío Pico, Constitutional Governor of the Department of California, hereby makes known to its inhabitants that the country is threatened by the United States by land and by sea, that it now occupies Monterey, Sonoma, San Francisco, and other frontier points to the north of this department, where the Stars and Stripes now wave with further threatenings to occupy more ports and towns and to subdue them to its laws; therefore, this government, having stood firmly resolved to do its utmost to oppose the most unjust aggression committed during late centuries, caused by a nation possessed with extraordinary ambitions, purposely authorizing a cleverly disguised robbery, exercising power over us during a period of political weakness.

It was one of his last acts as governor. As American forces advanced on Southern California, Pico fled to Baja California in a futile attempt to raise a resistance force. In the end, Los Angeles fell to the invading troops, and the American capture of Mexico City in September 1847 sealed California's fate: it became a permanent American possession.

Reluctantly accepting the outcome of the war, Pico returned to Southern California after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo established peace between the United States and Mexico. Although Pico would never learn English, relying instead on an interpreter, he remained one of Southern California's leading citizens through much of the nineteenth century.

In 1850, Pico bought Rancho Paso de Barolo, an 8,991-acre tract situated some twelve miles southeast of Los Angeles. Pico added a chapel, saloon, and other improvements and called his new home "El Ranchito," but to Yankees the ranch was "Picoville."

Whatever its name, for decades the rancho preserved the old Californio way of life. A gracious host, Pico welcomed many visitors and hosted dances, cockfights, and horse races. The land was also a working ranch; demand for beef surged with the Gold Rush, and vaqueros tended to Pico's large herds of cattle and horses. Most of the ranch has since been subdivided into the cities of Whittier, Montebello, and Pico Rivera, but Pico's homestead on the San Gabriel River survives as Pío Pico State Historic Park.

In the late 1860s, Yankees continued to trickle in to the former capital of Mexican California. Pico saw a profit to be made, and in 1870 he sold his land holdings in the San Fernando Valley to finance construction of the Pico House, a three-story hotel on L.A.'s central plaza that would cater to wealthy out-of-town visitors. The Pico House stands to this day, now part of the Los Angeles Plaza Historic District.

Pico's later years saw Don Pío, as he was fondly called, fall into penury. Bad investments and unscrupulous companions forced him to sell the Pico House. He lost the future Camp Pendleton to his brother in law, and El Ranchito to a real estate scam--Pico mortgaged the property, but when he tried to repay the loan his creditor refused and seized the land instead. In both cases, the former governor sought relief from the courts--in the latter case, appealing all the way to the California Supreme Court--but lost.

Pico died on September 11, 1894, just as newcomers from the Midwest and East Coast were transforming Los Angeles into a thoroughly Yankee city. Although Pio Pico Historic State Park's future is uncertain, the legacy of Mexican California's final governor is permanently enshrined in place names across Southern California: drivers cross Los Angeles every day along Pico Boulevard, and a portion of the don's former ranchito honors his memory today as the City of Pico Rivera.

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