Rancho Ojai was a Mexican land grant in present-day

Ventura County, California Ventura County () is a County (United States), county located in Southern California, the southern part of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 843,843. The largest city is Oxnard, Ca ...

given in 1837 by Governor Juan Alvarado to Fernando Tico. Rancho Ojai is located on the east side of the upper Ventura River, across from the Rancho Santa Ana grant made in the same year. The grant encompassed present-day city of Ojai, at the foot of the

Topatopa Mountains The Topatopa Mountains are a mountain range in Ventura County, California, north of Ojai, Santa Paula, and Fillmore. They are part of the Transverse Ranges of Southern California. Etymology A name for the mountains was first inscribed within t ...

History

Fernando Tico (d. 1862) married María Margarita López in 1821. By 1829, Tico had served as

alcalde ''Alcalde'' (; ) is the traditional Spanish municipal magistrate, who had both judicial and Administration (government), administrative functions. An ''alcalde'' was, in the absence of a corregidor (position), corregidor, the presiding officer o ...

of Santa Barbara. López died in 1834, and he remarried, to María de Jesus Silvestra Ortega. Tico was granted the four square league Rancho Ojai grant in 1837. In 1845, Tico was granted immediately to the west of the church at

Mission San Buenaventura Mission San Buenaventura (, Ventureño language, Ventureño: ), formally known as the Mission Basilica of San Buenaventura, is a parish (Catholic Church), Catholic parish and basilica in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Archdiocese ...

by Governor

Pío Pico Don (honorific), Don Pío de Jesús Pico IV (May 5, 1801 – September 11, 1894) was a California politician, ranchero, and entrepreneur, famous for serving as the List of governors of California before 1850, last governor of Alta California und ...

. In 1855, Tico (along with José Ramón Malo and Pablo de la Guerra) was elected to the first Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors. With the cession of California to the United States following the

Mexican-American War Mexican Americans are Americans of full or partial Mexican descent. In 2022, Mexican Americans comprised 11.2% of the US population and 58.9% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans. In 2019, 71% of Mexican Americans were born in the United State ...

, 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 Ojai 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 Fernando Tico in 1870. In 1853, Tico sold the rancho to Henry Starrow Carnes of Santa Barbara. Carnes was a lieutenant in Stevenson's 1st Regiment of New York Volunteers. In 1856, Carnes sold the rancho to Juan Camarillo. In 1864, Camarillo sold the rancho to John Bartlett. (Camarillo then bought Rancho Calleguas.) In the first subdivision of the grant, Bartlett sold one third to John B. Church, and the remaining two thirds to John Wyeth in 1865. Church and Wyeth were associates of Thomas R. Bard, representing

Thomas Alexander Scott Thomas Alexander Scott (December 28, 1823 – May 21, 1881) was an American businessman, railroad executive, and industrialist. In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln appointed him to serve as U.S. Assistant Secretary of War, and during the American ...

of the Philadelphia and California Petroleum Company. In 1874, the valley's first settlement was named Nordhoff in honor of an east coast journalist

Charles Nordhoff Charles Bernard Nordhoff (February 1, 1887 – April 10, 1947) was an American novelist and traveler, born in England. Nordhoff is perhaps best known for '' The Bounty Trilogy'', three historical novels he wrote with James Norman Hall: '' Mutin ...

who had publicized this special area. Not until 1917 did the town become known as Ojai.

References

{{Ventura River Ojai Ojai Ojai, California Topatopa Mountains Ojai