There's a Tomato Springs Toll Plaza on the 241 toll road in Orange County. Phil Brigandi says, "Tomato Springs is, was, a spring on the Irvine Ranch. Tomatoes grew wild there in the early days." Brigandi wrote "Orange County Place Names A-Z." He says Tomato Springs has a more sinister association.

"In 1912, a man – and there were always debates over his actual identity. He may have been the son of a very prominent family from up north who didn't want him identified. He was always called the Tomato Springs Bandit. But if you read the newspaper accounts from the time, what he really was was an attempted rapist."

The man was accused of attacking a little girl in Irvine. Brigandi says a manhunt tracked him down.

"And he holed up at Tomato Springs and managed to hold off a much larger number of people. And there was quite a bit of gunfire and always some debate exactly how he got shot, as will happen in these things. And whether he was shot by one of the posse out chasing him or took his own life at the end. But the bottom line was the Tomato Springs Bandit was no more, but the story passed on almost into legend."

And onto a toll plaza on the 241.

(Airdate: 9/1/2008)