Arroyo de Tejón, the canyon and stream, along with the pass through it and over the Tehachapi Mountains, were named with Tejón after a dead badger was found at the canyon's mouth by Lt. Francisco Ruiz in 1806. The Spanish military expedition led by Ruiz was exploring inland routes to the San Joaquin Valley and 'upper' settled Alta California, via the deserts from colonial New Spain. Along the creek and south of it the land grantRancho Tejón was established in 1843. Lieutenant Robert Stockton Williamson of the Pacific Railroad Survey Expedition surveyed the area in 1853, setting up his Depot Camp along the creek, on the land of the Rancho Tejón. The Sebastian Indian Reservation, the first Indian reservation in California, was established along Tejon Creek in 1853. It existed for 9 years, until the treaty was revoked by the U.S. government in 1864.
The ancient native trail now known as Old Tejon Pass was "discovered" in 1772 by Spanish explorer Pedro Fages, and used in 1776 by padre Francisco Garces, traveling east of the Anza Colonizing Expedition's main route. It is to the northeast of the present day Tejon Pass, in the Tehachapi Mountains, at the top of the divide between Tejon Creek Canyon in the San Joaquin Valley and Cottonwood Creek Canyon in the Antelope Valley of the western Mojave Desert. In 1806, Lt. Francisco Ruiz named it Tejón Pass while on an expedition into the San Joaquin Valley. Ruiz also named Tejon Canyon and Tejon Creek, all after the dead badger he had found at the canyon mouth. Later the El Camino Viejo, a Spanish and Mexican inland route from the Pueblo de Los Angeles northward, crossed the western Antelope Valley from Elizabeth Lake to Cottonwood Creek, and then crossed the Tehachapi Mountains at Old Tejon Pass, following Tejon Creek down into the San Joaquin Valley. Gold Rush 49ers, and early emigrants and teamsters followed this route. The Five Joaquins Gang used the route over the pass to drive their droves of stolen and wild horses southward to Sonora. It was described in 1853, by an Army Topographic Engineer, Lieutenant Robert Stockton Williamson as "one of the worst roads he ever saw." In an oak grove along the middle reach of the creek, on Rancho El Tejon, was the site of the Depot Camp of Williamson's Pacific Railroad expedition while it surveyed the passes into the San Joaquin Valley as possible routes for the railroad.
Williamson much preferred as a wagon route the lower and easier Grapevine Canyon to the west that led to a pass between the Tehachapi and San Emigdio Mountains. Following this discovery and the construction of Fort Tejon, wagon traffic soon changed to the easier Grapevine route named Fort Tejon Pass. The new Stockton - Los Angeles Road used it, and the Old Tejon Pass route was gradually abandoned. The name Tejon Pass was transferred west following the closure of Fort Tejon, when "Fort" was dropped from the Fort Tejon Pass name. The Tejon Pass eventually was so unused that it lost its name altogether on maps.
