Aguanga (; Luiseño: Awáanga, meaning "dog place") is a census-designated place located within the Inland Empire, Riverside County, California. It is located about east of Temecula and south-southeast of Hemet. Aguanga lies at an elevation of 1955 feet (596 m). As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 1,028. History The town gets its name from a former village of the Native village called awáanga, meaning 'dog place'. The Butterfield Overland Mail established a station 1.7 miles to the west of the current Post Office in 1858. It was at first called Tejungo Station and was located 14 miles east of Temecula Station and 12 miles northwest of Oak Grove Stage Station. The wooden building was located in a grove of trees a few hundred feet from the stage road. Soon, however, it became known as Aguanga Station after the name of the nearby Luiseño village. The November 7, 1861, report of Lieut. Col. Joseph R. West, mentioned the abandoned station location was then called Giftaler’s Ranch, after its German owner Joseph Giftaler, in a journal of his unit's march to Fort Yuma on the old Butterfield Overland Mail route. In a later Civil War itinerary of the route, it is referred to as the "Dutchman's". In 1863, Camp Giftaler Ranch was established at the ranch as a post along the march route of troops to Arizona Territory by the Union Army. In 1864, Giftaler's Ranch was purchased by Jacob Bergman, also a German immigrant, stagecoach driver and Union Army veteran, who operated the Bergman Ranch there for many years until his death on September 13, 1894. After the Civil War, he ran Bergman's Stage Station there for the Banning and Tomlinson Stage lines for many years. During the Julian Gold Rush, he ran the Guahonga post office there from July 27, 1870, to September 13, 1871. The post office for the area was then moved to Oak Grove until the Bergman post office was opened in 1894, but its name was changed to Aguanga in 1901. Today the station site is on the Twin Creek Stage Stop Ranch, on Allmouth Road, found just east of the Stagecoach Inn at 43851 Highway 79. The ruins of the old wooden station building and ranch house is located among a grove of trees, at the foot of the west end of the hill at the bottom of the meadow, along