Rancho Cuyamaca 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 the Cuyamaca Mountains and

Laguna Mountains The Laguna Mountains are a mountain range of the Peninsular Ranges System in eastern San Diego County, southern California. The mountains run in a northwest/southeast alignment for approximately . The mountains have long been inhabited by the i ...

, in present-day San Diego County, California, United States. It was given in 1845 by Governor Pío Pico to Agustín Olvera. The grant extended south of present-day Julian and encompassed

Cuyamaca Rancho State Park Cuyamaca Rancho State Park is a state park in Southern California, United States, located east of San Diego in the Cuyamaca and Laguna Mountains of the Peninsular Ranges. The park's feature pine, fir, and oak forests, with meadows and streams ...

Lake Cuyamaca Lake Cuyamaca, also called Cuyamaca Reservoir, is a reservoir and a recreation area in the eastern Cuyamaca Mountains, located in eastern San Diego County, California. Geography California State Route 79 wraps around three shores, and provides ...

, and

Cuyamaca Peak Cuyamaca Peak is a mountain peak of the Cuyamaca Mountains range, in San Diego County, Southern California. Geography At , its summit is the second highest point in San Diego County. Cuyamaca Peak is located roughly from the Pacific Ocean, wi ...

History

Olvera remained in the

Pueblo of Los Angeles In the Southwestern United States, Pueblo (capitalized) refers to the Native tribes of Puebloans having fixed-location communities with permanent buildings which also are called pueblos (lowercased). The Spanish explorers of northern New Spai ...

and never resided on the grant. For several years, his agent Cesario Walker began lumber operations but was driven out by local Indians. 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 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 Cuyamaca was filed with the Public Land Commission in 1852. The grant contained no mention of size nor was there any description of boundaries. It was specified in the grant that it was to be measured and maps made. But, with the exception of a crude map of indefinite date, nothing seems to have been done until it came before the land commission. In 1869, Olvera sold one-third to his lawyer, Isaac Hartman and the remaining two-thirds to Samual Stewart. Stewart in turn sold one-half of the two-thirds to Robert Allison and one-fourth to John Treat. He later sold the remaining one-fourth to Allison and Juan Luco jointly. Following the discovery of gold in the Julian area in 1870, a dispute as to the boundaries of the rancho arose. The new owners attempted to extend Rancho Cuyamaca boundaries northward to Rancho Santa Ysabel and include the Julian mines. The miners, supported by the general public of

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United State ...

, claimed the land was public. Four years later, the area of the rancho was fixed at eight square leagues and the northern boundary line 7 miles south of Julian. 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 Agustín Olvera in 1874. Report of the Surveyor General 1844 - 1886
Although the boundary dispute has been settled, conflicting ownership claims forced a new survey and partition into 14 lots among 10 owners in 1879. In 1886 Robert W. Waterman acquired most of the grant.

References

{{California history Cuyamaca Cuyamaca Cuyamaca Mountains Laguna Mountains East County (San Diego County) Cuya

History

See also

References