Rancho de Los Feliz was a Spanish land concession in present-day

Los Angeles County, California Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles and sometimes abbreviated as LA County, is the List of United States counties and county equivalents, most populous county in the United States, with 9,663,345 residents estimated in 202 ...

purportedly given in 1795 by Spanish Governor Pedro Fages to José Vicente Feliz, although there is no deed or other record.. The land of the grant includes

Los Feliz LOS, or Los, or LoS may refer to: Science and technology * Length of stay, the duration of a single episode of hospitalisation * Level of service, a measure used by traffic engineers * Level of significance, a measure of statistical significanc ...

and

Griffith Park Griffith Park is a large municipal park at the eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountains, in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. The park includes popular attractions such as the Los Angeles Zoo, the Autry Museum of the Amer ...

, and was bounded on the east by the

Los Angeles River The Los Angeles River (), historically known as by the Tongva and the by the Spanish, is a major river in Los Angeles County, California. Its headwaters are in the Simi Hills and Santa Susana Mountains, and it flows nearly from Canoga Park ...

History

Given to Jose Vicente Feliz, this was one of the first land grants made in California. Born in Sonora, Mexico, about 1741, Corporal Feliz, a veteran of the Anza Expedition of 1776, was the Spanish military leader at the

Pueblo of Los Angeles Pueblo refers to the settlements of the Pueblo peoples, Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States, currently in New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. The permanent communities, including some of the oldest continually occupied settleme ...

. In 1787 Governor Fages appointed Feliz as Comisionado of the Los Angeles Pueblo, giving him the powers of Mayor and Judge. Some sources say that, for his service, Feliz was granted Rancho Los Feliz. H. H. Bancroft, in his ''History of California'', doubted any governor granted the rancho to Vicente Féliz. Mexican Governor

Manuel Micheltorena Joseph Manuel María Joaquin Micheltorena y Llano (8 June 1804 – 7 September 1853) was a brigadier general and adjutant-general of the Mexican Army, List_of_governors_of_California_before_1850#Mexican_governors_of_California_(1837–47), gover ...

granted the rancho to María Ygnacia Verdugo. María Ygnacia Verdugo was the wife of one of the sons of Anastacio María Féliz. Anastacio was probably a cousin of José Vicente Féliz. When María's husband died, she petitioned for a grant in her name and in the name of her son José Antonio Féliz. Governor Micheltorena granted it to her in 1843. She did not remarry. With the cession of California to the United States following the Mexican–American War, the 1848

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo officially ended the Mexican–American War (1846–1848). It was signed on 2 February 1848 in the town of Villa de Guadalupe, Mexico City, Guadalupe Hidalgo. After the defeat of its army and the fall of the cap ...

provided that the land grants would be honored. As required by the Land Act of 1851, a claim for Rancho Los Feliz was filed with the

Public Land Commission The California Land Act of 1851 (), enacted following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the admission of California as a state in 1850, established the California State Lands Commission to determine the validity of prior Spanish and Mexican l ...

in 1852, and the grant was

patented A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...

to María Ygnacia Verdugo (written "M.Y. Berdugo") in 1871. María Ygnacía Verdugo deeded some of the rancho to her daughters in 1853. In 1863, the executor of Antonio Féliz's estate – Antonio F. Coronel – acquired ownership of what remained of Rancho de Los Feliz from the heirs of María Ygnacia Verdugo. Cyrus Lyon sold the land on the former rancho the city gave to him in the 1850s as "donation lots" to San Francisco real estate developer James Lick. The city's claim to this area was based on its grant of "four-leagues square." In 1882, Colonel Griffith Jenkins Griffith acquired of Rancho Los Feliz. Colonel Griffith donated to the city of Los Angeles (nearly half of the original rancho), which became Griffith Park, one of the largest city-owned parks in the country. At the time, the Lick estate still owned the southwest portion of the rancho, and there developed the Lick Tract, which later became a part of

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood ...

Historic sites of the Rancho

* Los Feliz Adobe. An old adobe house built in the 1830s by heirs of Feliz still stands in Griffith Park (Park Ranger's Headquarters). Rancho Los Feliz
/ref> * Maugna, site of former Native American

Tongva The Tongva ( ) are an Indigenous peoples of California, Indigenous people of California from the Los Angeles Basin and the Channel Islands of California, Southern Channel Islands, an area covering approximately . In the precolonial era, the peop ...

ranchería The Spanish word ranchería, or rancherío, refers to a small, rural settlement. In the Americas the term was applied to Indigenous peoples of the Americas, native villages or bunkhouses. Anglo-Americans adopted the term with both these meaning ...

'' settlement preceding the Mexican ''rancho''.

References

External links

Map of old Spanish and Mexican ranchos in Los Angeles County
{{California history Griffith Park History of Hollywood, Los Angeles Los Feliz, Los Angeles 1795 in The Californias 1795 establishments in The Californias 18th century in Los Angeles 19th century in Los Angeles Ranchos of Los Angeles County, California

History

Historic sites of the Rancho

See also

References

External links