Rancho San Francisco was a

land grant A land grant is a gift of real estate—land or its use privileges—made by a government or other authority as an incentive, means of enabling works, or as a reward for services to an individual, especially in return for military service. Grants ...

in present-day northwestern

Los Angeles County Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles and sometimes abbreviated as LA County, is the most populous county in the United States, with 9,663,345 residents estimated in 2023. Its population is greater than that of 40 individua ...

and eastern

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 ...

. It was a grant of by Governor Juan B. Alvarado to Antonio del Valle, a Mexican army officer, in recognition for his service to

Alta California Alta California (, ), also known as Nueva California () among other names, was a province of New Spain formally established in 1804. Along with the Baja California peninsula, it had previously comprised the province of , but was made a separat ...

. It is not related to the city of

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

. The rancho is the location of the first popularly known finding of

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

in the Southern California area in 1842, in Placerita Canyon. Much of the present day city of Santa Clarita lies within the boundary of what was Rancho San Francisco. The

adobe Adobe (from arabic: الطوب Attub ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is use ...

headquarters of the rancho, and the site of the gold find (known today as the "Oak of the Golden Dream"), are designated

California Historical Landmark A California Historical Landmark (CHL) is a building, structure, site, or place in the U.S. state of California that has been determined to have statewide historical landmark significance. Criteria Historical significance is determined by meetin ...

s. The rancho included portions of the San Gabriel, Santa Susana, Topatopa, and

Sierra Pelona The Sierra Pelona, also known as the Sierra Pelona Ridge or the Sierra Pelona Mountains and originally known as the Liebre Mountains, is a mountain ridge in the Transverse Ranges in Southern California. Located in northwest Los Angeles County, t ...

Mountain range A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have aris ...

Early history

After

Mission San Fernando Rey de España Mission San Fernando Rey de España is a Spanish missions in California, Spanish mission in the Mission Hills, Los Angeles, Mission Hills community of Los Angeles, California. The mission was founded on September 8, 1797 at the site of Achooyko ...

was established in 1797, the administrators there realized they would need more land for agriculture and livestock, and they looked north to the

Santa Clarita Valley The Santa Clarita Valley (SCV) is part of the upper watershed of the Santa Clara River in Southern California. The western portion of the valley was part of the Rancho San Francisco Mexican land grant. Located in Los Angeles County. The valle ...

to establish their ''

estancia An estancia or estância is a large, private plot of land used for farming or raising cattle or sheep. Estancias are located in the southern South American grasslands of Chilean and Argentine Patagonia, while the ''pampas'' have historically bee ...

'', or mission rancho. Subsequently, the

Tataviam The Tataviam (Kitanemuk: ''people on the south slope'') are a Native American group in Southern California. The ancestral land of the Tataviam people includes northwest present-day Los Angeles County and southern Ventura County, primarily in ...

who had been living there were relocated to the Mission, where they were

baptized Baptism (from ) is a Christian sacrament of initiation almost invariably with the use of water. It may be performed by sprinkling or pouring water on the head, or by immersing in water either partially or completely, traditionally three ...

and conscripted for work. The Estancia de San Francisco Xavier was built in 1804 at the confluence of

Castaic Creek Castaic Creek (Chumashan languages, Chumash: ''Kaštiq'') is a , accessed March 16, 2011 stream in the Sierra Pelona Mountains, in northeastern Los Angeles County, California. It is a tributary of the Santa Clara River (California), Santa Clar ...

and the Santa Clara River in what is now the unincorporated community of Castaic Junction. Rancho San Francisco branding iron

Following the

Mexican War of Independence The Mexican War of Independence (, 16 September 1810 – 27 September 1821) was an armed conflict and political process resulting in Mexico's independence from the Spanish Empire. It was not a single, coherent event, but local and regional ...

, the missions were secularized and the land taken by the Mexican government. In 1834, Lieutenant Antonio del Valle was assigned to inventory the property of Mission San Fernando. The rancho was supposed to be returned to the Tataviam, but Governor Alvarado deeded it to his friend Del Valle instead on January 22, 1839. The Del Valle family moved into the former ''estancia'' buildings (near what is now Castaic). Del Valle died in 1841. On his deathbed, he attempted to reconcile with his estranged son Ygnacio by writing him a letter and offering the entire rancho to him as his inheritance. Del Valle died before his son received the letter. Ygnacio did return and took possession of the land, but after a lawsuit the property was split with his stepmother.

Discovery of gold

According to a local legend, Francisco López, the uncle of Antonio's second wife, Jacoba Feliz, took a rest under an oak tree in Placerita Canyon on March 9, 1842, and had a dream that he was floating on a pool of gold. When he awoke, he pulled a few wild

onion An onion (''Allium cepa'' , from Latin ), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus '' Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the onion which was classifie ...

s from the ground finding flakes of gold in the roots. Contrary to this portrait of him as a farmer who stumbled upon his discovery, López had studied

mineralogy Mineralogy is a subject of geology specializing in the scientific study of the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical (including optical mineralogy, optical) properties of minerals and mineralized artifact (archaeology), artifacts. Specific s ...

at the

University of Mexico The National Autonomous University of Mexico (, UNAM) is a public research university in Mexico. It has several campuses in Mexico City, and many others in various locations across Mexico, as well as a presence in nine countries. It also has 34 ...

and had been actively searching for gold. Evidence suggests that gold had previously been found in the area about thirty years prior, but the López gold find was the first popularly documented incident in the area. This sparked a

gold rush A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, ...

on a much smaller scale than the 1849

California Gold Rush The California gold rush (1848–1855) began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the U ...

. About 2,000 people, mostly from the Mexican state of

Sonora Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora (), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Administrative divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is divided into Municipalities of Sonora, 72 ...

, came to Rancho San Francisco to mine the gold. Knowledge of the gold find seems to have remained largely within Mexican territory.

John Sutter John Augustus Sutter (February 23, 1803 – June 18, 1880), born Johann August Sutter and known in Spanish as Don Juan Sutter, was a Switzerland, Swiss immigrant who became a Mexican and later an American citizen, known for establishing Sutter ...

and his "right-hand man" John Bidwell, both of whom sided with 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 ...

during his power struggle with former governor

Juan Bautista Alvarado Juan Bautista Valentín Alvarado y Vallejo (February 14, 1809 – July 13, 1882) usually known as Juan Bautista Alvarado, was a Californio politician that served as governor of Alta California from 1837 to 1842. Prior to his term as governor, Al ...

, were imprisoned after the latter's side won the bloodless

Battle of Providencia The Battle of Providencia (also called the "Second Battle of Cahuenga Pass") took place in Cahuenga Pass in early 1845 on Rancho Providencia in the San Fernando Valley, north of Los Angeles, California. Native ''Californios'' successfully chal ...

in 1845. After their release, Bidwell headed north through Placerita Canyon, saw the mining operations, and was determined to search for gold on his way to

Sutter's Fort Sutter's Fort was a 19th-century agricultural and trade colony in the Mexican ''Alta California'' province. Established in 1839, the site of the fort was originally part of a utopian colonial project called New Helvetia (''New Switzerland'') ...

. During the

Mexican–American War The Mexican–American War (Spanish language, Spanish: ''guerra de Estados Unidos-México, guerra mexicano-estadounidense''), also known in the United States as the Mexican War, and in Mexico as the United States intervention in Mexico, ...

, Del Valle destroyed the mine to prevent the United States from gaining its control. The tree where López took his nap is now known as the "Oak of the Golden Dream" and is registered as California Historic Landmark #168.

Later history

With the

cession The act of cession is the assignment of property to another entity. In international law it commonly refers to land transferred by treaty. Ballentine's Law Dictionary defines cession as "a surrender; a giving up; a relinquishment of jurisdicti ...

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, Jacoba Feliz filed a claim for Rancho San Francisco in 1852. She received a

patent 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 sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...

for 48,611.88 acres in 1875. Ygnacio Del Valle received the westernmost portion of , Feliz (now Salazár) took , and her six children received each. Unfortunately, at this time Southern California experienced a great deal of

flood A flood is an overflow of water (list of non-water floods, or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are of significant con ...

ing, and ranchers were forced to

mortgage A mortgage loan or simply mortgage (), in civil law (legal system), civil law jurisdictions known also as a hypothec loan, is a loan used either by purchasers of real property to raise funds to buy real estate, or by existing property owners t ...

their properties in order to sustain their needs during the interruption in producing their food and needs and other damages to the land and buildings. Feliz mortgaged her portion of the land to William Wolfskill, who returned a portion of it back to Del Valle in exchange for him settling her debts. Floods were followed by

drought A drought is a period of drier-than-normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, ...

s, which again exacerbated the ranchers' problems. Finally, in 1862 Del Valle was forced to sell off most of his land to oil speculators (the Philadelphia and California Petroleum Company headed by Thomas A. Scott), keeping only his Rancho Camulos. The oilmen were unable to find any oil, and Rancho San Francisco eventually landed in the hands of

Henry Newhall Henry Mayo Newhall (May 13, 1825 – March 13, 1882) was an American businessman whose extensive land holdings became the Southern California communities of Newhall, Saugus and Valencia, and the city of Santa Clarita. Life Born in Saugus, ...

, whose name is now closely associated with the Santa Clarita Valley area. Newhall granted right-of-way to

Southern Pacific Railroad The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials) was an American Railroad classes#Class I, Class I Rail transport, railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was oper ...

to build a rail line to

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

and sold them a portion of the land, upon which sprang a new town that the company named after him, Newhall. Another town grew around the

train station A train station, railroad station, or railway station is a railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passengers, freight, or both. It generally consists of at least one platform, one track, and a station building providing suc ...

and Newhall named it after his hometown, Saugus. After Newhall's death in 1882, his heirs formed the Newhall Land and Farming Company, which managed the lands. In 1936, Atholl McBean, Newhall's grandson-in-law, found oil on the property and changed the name to Newhall Ranch.

Historic designations

No. 556 Rancho San Francisco Adobe marker reads: Placerita Canyon State Park – California Historical Landmark No. 168 Oak of the Golden Dream: where Francisco López found gold. The marker reads:

Notes

References

External links

Map of old Spanish and Mexican ranchos in Los Angeles County

San Gabriel Mountains Santa Clara River (California) Santa Clarita, California Santa Susana Mountains Sierra Pelona Ridge Topatopa Mountains California Historical Landmarks Oak of the Golden Dream Ranchos of Los Angeles County, California {{good article