Rancho Cañada de Pala was a

Mexican land grant The Spanish and Mexican governments made many concessions and land grants in Alta California (now known as California) and Baja California from 1775 to 1846. The Spanish Concessions of land were made to retired soldiers as an inducement for ...

in present-day

Santa Clara County, California Santa Clara County, officially the County of Santa Clara, is the sixth-most populous county in the U.S. state of California, with a population of 1,936,259, as of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. Santa Clara County and neighboring Sa ...

given in 1839 by Governor

Juan B. Alvarado Juan Bautista Valentín Alvarado y Vallejo (February 14, 1809 – July 13, 1882) was a Californio politician that served as Governor of Alta California from 1837-42. Prior to his term as governor, Alvarado briefly led a movement for independen ...

to José de Jesús Bernal. The origin of the name Cañada de Pala is the subject of debate. The word "pala" translates as "shovel" in Spanish, but means "water", in many Native Californian dialects. The grant was in the foothills and mountains of the

Diablo Range The Diablo Range is a mountain range in the California Coast Ranges subdivision of the Pacific Coast Ranges in northern California, United States. It stretches from the eastern San Francisco Bay area at its northern end to the Salinas Valley are ...

, east of San Jose and included most of what is now

Grant Ranch Park Joseph D. Grant County Park is the largest county park in Santa Clara County, California. Also known as Grant Ranch Park, this site is situated in the Diablo Range foothills of the eastern Santa Clara Valley. The park is one of 28 owned by Santa ...

and all of present-day

Blue Oak Ranch Reserve The Blue Oak Ranch Reserve, a unit of the University of California Natural Reserve System, is an ecological reserve and biological field station in Santa Clara County, California. It is located on in the Diablo Range, northwest of Mount Hamilt ...

History

José de Jesús Bernal was granted Rancho Cañada de Pala in 1839. Jose de Jesus and his two brothers built adobes around a spring-fed pond on a ridge overlooking the Santa Clara Valley. They pastured cattle and horses on this land. Bernal's uncle, Joaquin Bernal, occupied the nearby Rancho Santa Teresa. 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 jurisdictio ...

of California to the United States following the

Mexican–American War The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the (''United States intervention in Mexico''), was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848. It followed the 1 ...

, the 1848

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ( es, Tratado de Guadalupe Hidalgo), officially the Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Limits, and Settlement between the United States of America and the United Mexican States, is the peace treaty that was signed on 2 ...

provided that the land grants would be honored. As required by the Land Act of 1851, a claim for Rancho Cañada de Pala 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 a three-member Public Land Commission to determine the validity of prior Spanish and Mexican la ...

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 p ...

to José de Jesús Bernal, José Antonio Bernal and Juan Bernal in 1863. The "Halls Valley" area which encompasses most of the present-day Grant Ranch Park was deeded to Bernal's attorney, Frederick Hall, to pay for processing his claim. In 1850, the southern third of the rancho was sold to Samuel Q. Broughton (1824–). Broughton, a native of

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

, came overland to California in 1846.H. S. Foote, 1888, ''Pen Pictures From The Garden of the World or Santa Clara County, California, Illustrated'', Pg. 551–552, The Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago Adam Grant was a founder of Murphy, Grant, & Company, a dry goods store which sold supplies to gold miners, bought his initial holding of Cañada de Pala in 1880. Grant's son, Joseph D. Grant, eventually owned approximately . In 1974, Grant Ranch was purchased by Santa Clara County for park use.

References

External links

U.C. Reserves - History of the Blue Oak Ranch
---- {{DEFAULTSORT:Rancho Canada de Pala Canada de Pala

Cañada ''Cañada'' (, Spanish for droveway, drovers' road) may refer to: Places Argentina *Cañada de Gómez, a city in the province of Santa Fe *Cañada Rosquín, a small town (comuna) in the province of Santa Fe * La Cañada, a town in Santiago d ...