Located along the south bank of the San Antonio River at the junction of Pleyto Road and the road to Bradley, Pleyto was an early settlement whose site now lies beneath Lake San Antonio. As early as 1796, the area was known as Pleito or El Pleito. The name Pleito, a Spanish legal term meaning litigation or dispute, may have come from a disagreement between the San Miguel and San Antonio Missions over property rights, or from the nearby Indian Rancheria of Assil, where Indian disagreements or lawsuits may have been settled. On July 18, 1845, the land was granted to Jose Antonio Chavez as Rancho San Bartolome. Twelve years later, the rancho, by then known as Pleyto, was purchased by W.S. Johnson. In 1868 William Pinkerton, Sr. bought 13,100 acres of the ranch and laid out the town. A post office opened on December 14, 1870, under the name Pleito, and the coast stage line, which kept stables there, listed the stop as Plato Ranch in its 1871 timetable. By 1884, the post office name had changed to Pleyto. Despite its shifting name, the town had a store, hotel, blacksmith shop, dance hall, and school. The post office closed for the last time on February 14, 1929, and the town faded from memory. By 1964, when San Antonio Dam was completed, few traces of the pioneer settlement remained.