City Guard of Los Angeles

In February 1855, the "City Guard of Los Angeles" was organized to assist the City Marshal with his crime fighting endeavors. This unit differed from the Los Angels Rangers in that, the Rangers was a Calvary unit mostly patrolling outside the city limits, while the City Guards patrolled within the city limits. Once accepted to the organization, members of the unit received this certificate of membership. To my knowledge, this certificate has never been published or seen since the 1850's. I came across this document at the Huntington Library while searching for information on the Rangers. An interesting observation is the name of the Captain, W.W. Twist. Shortly after, Twist resigned on February 11, 1856 from the Los Angeles Guards and became involved in another volunteer unit called"the Southern Rifles" which elected him as the captain. However, he fell out of favor with the officers and leaders of the Southern Rifles which consisted of sixty men. During a regularly held meeting on a Monday August 31,1858, Twist was stripped of his position and expelled from the unit. They cited his refusal to work with the members and his personal conduct as reason for the unanimous decision to demote and expel him.

Now, a note about the various volunteer units and military units in Los Angeles. This particular unit is not the same as the Los Angeles Guard which was developed a lot earlier. Los Angeles had several units such at the "Lanceros de Los Angeles" a Hispanic unit led by Pio Pico, the "Union Guards," the "Los Angeles Mounted Rifles" and the "Los Angeles Grey's." All of these units were led or had members that would later become Los Angeles Police Officers and City Marshals.

This certificate of membership can be found at the Huntington Library, Abel Stern Collection,

SG Box 41.