There cargos could be ferried across to the Mission and Presidio of San Francisco or to other places on the bay more quickly and in more quantity than carriage by road.
Later Californio vaqueros made "El Camino Viejo" a well-known trail that connected Rancho San Antonio with the Pueblo de Los Ángeles.
The vaqueros ran cattle and in the 1840s began establishing inland Mexican land grant ranchos along the route.
Californio mesteñeros (wild horse catchers) also moved into the San Joaquin Valley to catch the mesteños (mustangs) that now roamed in the thousands, and held them in temporary corrals before herding them to the Bay Area, to Southern California, or to Sonora and other territories of northern Mexico for sale.
With the California Gold Rush a shortcut developed at the northern end of El Camino Viejo, as part of the Oakland to Stockton Road used by stagecoaches and teamsters.