A California State historical marker, number 469, is located outside of the building, too, at the corner of Water Street and Branciforte Avenue.

[4] Those rules included locally elected officials (subject to approval by the governor): the alcalde (combined mayor and judge), the ayuntamiento (town council), the juez de paz (justice of the peace), and others.

Expecting to find the town already built to accommodate them, they found they had to build their own rough dwellings with little tools or provisions.

In the end the Villa de Branciforte never resembled the neatly laid out plans for streets and buildings its planners envisioned.

[6][7] Ever since the first days, many of its residents, whom the narratives and chronicles denounce as "lazy" and prone to vices and crime, decided to move to other, more prosperous settlements like the Pueblo of San José.

When Bouchard arrived, he did not sack Santa Cruz but instead it was the residents of Branciforte who looted and stole from the mission even the clothes from the saints adorning the church.