Well received by critics when first published in 1941. The Cattle on a Thousand Hills describes Southern California in its transition from a cattle frontier of Mexican rule and culture to an agricultural American community on the eve of great industrial and urban expansion. The story includes the conversion of great grazing ranchos into farms and settlements, the gradual displacement of frontier violence and instability by a more restrained, law-abiding society, and the impact of Anglo-Saxon customs and institutions upon the pastoral life of the Spanish-Californians.