Remembering Sam Porter

If you lived in the Robinson Ranch area in the 1980s and 1990s, you probably remember Sam Porter. This memorial is located a a hundred yards or so north of the Bell View Trail. Depending on who you talk to, the then-retired cement contractor was either a salty old curmudgeon who created the shanty town commonly known as Porterville (before OC code enforcement shut it down), or he was a provider of affordable housing for the most disadvantaged members of our society - the hispanic immigrants. He and William Lyon traded lawsuits resulting from the Robinson Ranch residential developments land-locking his 230 acres. He suffered a major stroke in the mid 1990s and passed away in 1996.