Rancho el Corte de Madera 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 1844 by Governor Manuel Micheltorena to Máximo Martínez. The name translates as "the place where lumber is cut". The roughly triangular shaped grant was west of today's

I-280 Interstate 280 may refer to multiple highways, all of which are or were related to Interstate 80: * Interstate 280 (California), a north–south freeway running from San Jose to San Francisco * Interstate 280 (Iowa–Illinois), part of the beltway ...

, and bounded on the north by

Alambique Creek Alambique Creek, or ''Arroyo Alembique'', is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed 2012-02-11 stream located in San Mateo County, California, in the United States. It is tr ...

and

San Francisquito Creek San Francisquito Creek (Spanish for "Little San Francisco" - the "little" referring to size of the settlement compared to Mission San Francisco de Asís) is a creek that flows into southwest San Francisco Bay in California, United States. Histo ...

, on the south by Los Trancos Creek and Matadero Creek, and on the west by what is now

Skyline Boulevard A skyline is the outline or shape viewed near the horizon. It can be created by a city’s overall structure, or by human intervention in a rural setting, or in nature that is formed where the sky meets buildings or the land. City skyline ...

. The grant surrounded

Rancho Cañada del Corte de Madera Rancho Cañada del Corte de Madera was a Mexican land grant in present day Santa Clara County, California given in 1833 by Governor José Figueroa to José Domingo Peralta and Máximo Martínez. The name translates as "the valley where lumber ...

which extended along the

Portola Valley Portola Valley is a town in San Mateo County, California. Located on the San Francisco Peninsula in the Bay Area, Portola Valley is a small, wealthy community nestled on the eastern slopes of the Santa Cruz Mountains. History Portola Val ...

. The land grant included parts of present day Woodside,

Ladera ''Ladera'' (Greek λαδερά), ''zeytinyağlı (yemekler)'' ( Turkish), or ''bil zayt'' (Arabic بالزيت) is a category of vegetable dishes cooked in olive oil in the cuisines of the former Ottoman Empire, notably Greek, Turkish, and Arab ...

and

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

History

Máximo Martínez and José Domingo Peralta had been granted Rancho Cañada del Corte de Madera in 1833 by Governor

José Figueroa José Figueroa (1792 – 29 September 1835), was a General and the Mexican Governor of Alta California from 1833 to 1835. He wrote the first book to be published in California. Background and governorship Figueroa was a Mestizo of Spanish a ...

. Peralta sold his share in the property to Martínez in 1835, and returned to Rancho San Antonio. In 1844 Máximo Martínez was granted the surrounding two square league Rancho Corte de Madera by Governor Micheltorena. Máximo Martínez (1792 - 1863) had been a soldier in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

from 1819 until 1827. He was regidor (councilman) in the

Pueblo of San José San Jose, California, is the third largest city in the state, and the largest of all cities in the San Francisco Bay Area and Northern California, with a population of 1,021,795. Site chosen by Anza For thousands of years before the arrival of E ...

in 1833. He married Damiana Padilla, and in 1834 the couple moved onto his Rancho Cañada del Corte de Madera, until his death in 1863. 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 Mexican Americans ( es, mexicano-estadounidenses, , or ) are Americans of full or partial Mexicans, Mexican heritage. In 2019, Mexican Americans comprised 11.3% of the US population and 61.5% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans. In 2019, 71% ...

, 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 Corte de Madera 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 Máximo Martínez in 1858. Report of the Surveyor General 1844 - 1886

References

{{SF Bay Area Corte de Madera, el Corte de Madera, el Corte de Madera, el Woodside, California Corte