Tomas Sánchez Ávila

Tomás Sánchez Ávila (c. 1826–1882) was a Californio soldier, sheriff and public official on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and Los Angeles Common Council.

Personal Sanchez was baptized José Tomas Tadeo Sanchez y Avila as the son of Pedro Antonio Jose Sanchez (1806–1837) and Maria Ascension Josefa Avila (1809–1847). His grandfather, Vicente Anastacio Sanchez (1785–1846), was mayor of Los Angeles in 1831–1832 and 1845 and the grantee of Rancho La Cienega o Paso de la Tijera.

In 1867, Sanchez married Maria Sepulveda (daughter of Fernando Sepulveda and Maria Josefa Dominguez) and lived in an adobe home Casa Adobe De San Rafael on Rancho San Rafael.

He died at the age of 56 in 1882, leaving his wife, nineteen sons and two daughters. Sanchez remained in the area after the war and remained active in politics under the new California government as a Democrat.

Los Angeles pioneer historian Harris Newmark recalled in his Sixty Years in Southern California that Sanchez was one of the "prominent Mexican politicians" who made "flowery stump speeches" to a group of "docile though illegal voters, most of whom were Indians," who had been literally corraled by backers of Thomas H. Workman who was running for county clerk and who swung them over to vote for the Democratic candidate instead of for Workman. "These were the methods then in vogue," Newmark wrote.

Sanchez's Los Angeles County biography states that in the 1850s Sanchez "was a staunch Democrat and strongly favored" the Confederacy.

Common Council Sanchez was elected to a one-year term on the Los Angeles Common Council, the legislative branch of the city, on May 5, 1851, serving in the at-large post until May 4, 1852. It was the second election for municipal officers after the reorganization of the city following the Mexican War.

Board of Supervisors During the insurrection of Juan Flores after the murder of Los Angeles County Sheriff James R. Barton in January 1857, Sanchez, who had a reputation for "physical courage and prowess" he was the first sheriff to have been born in the county. He became a founding member and lieutenant in the Los Angeles Mounted Rifles in March 1861. Sanchez, "the primary law enforcement agent in a lawless land," used his position as sheriff to help equip the company, but when Secessionist members of the organization absconded for Texas with the company's rifles in June 1861, he remained behind in office. Despite the suspicion of him by Federal officials during the American Civil War, he remained in office until 1867.

Sanchez inherited Rancho La Cienega o Paso de la Tijera from his grandfather in 1846. After the death of Tomas, "a patent was granted his estate for four thousand or more acres" at Rancho Cienega y Paso de la Tijera.