Although this street wasn’t laid out until 1933, the Basye family subdivided their forty acre property here in 1904 after a series of tragedies. Some background: Born in Taos, NM to an Anglo father and Mexican mother, Rafael Basye (1832-1887) came to SoCal in the 1860s and married María Antonia Alvitre (1853-1939), a San Gabriel girl, in 1869. They ran a grocery store on the old Mission grounds and had six children. In November 1898, their daughter Rafaela (1873-1899?) married Charles P. Temple (1872-1918), rakish son of Los Angeles banker/developer F.P.F. Temple and brother of Temple City cofounder Walter. Rafaela died shortly thereafter – date and cause of death unknown – and the Basyes suspected Charles, who was known to be violent when intoxicated. In March 1899, a shootout erupted between Charles and Rafaela’s brother James which left Charles with a hole in his shoulder. Although the two men made amends, there remained bad blood: three years later, another Basye brother, Thomas, got into a drunken argument in Charles’s saloon and Charles shot Thomas in the neck, killing him. He was charged with murder but acquitted. Of the remaining Basye siblings, only Edward had kids – eight of them, in fact, and many of their descendants still live in this area.
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