Rancho Santa Maria de Los Peñasquitos 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 southwestern

San Diego County, California San Diego County (), officially the County of San Diego, is a county in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,298,634, making it California's second-most populous county and the fi ...

given in 1823 to

Francisco María Ruiz Francisco María Ruiz (1754–1839) was an early settler of San Diego, California Ruiz was born 1754 in Loreto, Baja California. He enlisted in the army when he was 26 and sent to Upper California. He was promoted from sergeant to lieutena ...

. The name means "Saint Mary of the Little Cliffs". It encompassed the present-day communities of

Mira Mesa Mira Mesa (Spanish language, Spanish for "Mesa, Table View") is a community and neighborhood in the city of San Diego, California. The city-recognized Mira Mesa Community Plan Area is roughly bounded by Interstate 15 on the east, Interstate 805 o ...

, Carmel Valley, and

Rancho Peñasquitos Rancho or Ranchos may refer to: Settlements and communities *Rancho, Aruba, former fishing village and neighbourhood of Oranjestad *Ranchos of California, 19th century land grants in Alta California **List of California Ranchos *Ranchos, Buenos Ai ...

in northern

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 List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

city, and was inland from the Torrey Pines State Natural Preserve bluffs.Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve
from sandiego.gov accessed 5/19/2017

History

The Rancho Santa Maria de los Peñasquitos was the first Mexican land grant in present-day

San Diego County San Diego County (), officially the County of San Diego, is a county in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,298,634, making it California's second-most populous county and the fi ...

. Ruiz built an adobe home on the rancho, which was north of the

Presidio A presidio ( en, jail, fortification) was a fortified base established by the Spanish Empire around between 16th century, 16th and 18th century, 18th centuries in areas in condition of their control or influence. The presidios of Captaincy Genera ...

and

Mission San Diego de Alcalá Mission Basilica San Diego de Alcalá ( es, Misión San Diego de Alcalá) was the second Franciscan founded mission in The Californias (after San Fernando de Velicata), a province of New Spain. Located in present-day San Diego, California, it w ...

, and nearby the

Kumeyaay The Kumeyaay, also known as Tipai-Ipai or by their historical Spanish name Diegueño, is a tribe of Indigenous peoples of the Americas who live at the northern border of Baja California in Mexico and the southern border of California in the Unit ...

settlement of ''Awil Nyawa''. Ruiz built the first ranch house on the rancho in 1824, which was later expanded upon. In 1837 Ruiz sold his ranch to Francisco María Alvarado - a grandnephew. After Ruiz died in 1839, Alvarado moved to the ranch, and lived in the adobe home built by Ruiz. Alvarado married Tomasa Pico (1801 - 1876), and they gave the property to their daughter Maria Estéfana Alvarado (1840 - 1926) when she married Captain

George Alonzo Johnson George Alonzo Johnson (1824–1903) 49er, entrepreneur, and California politician. Johnson was born on August 16, 1824, in Palatine Bridge, New York. In 1849 as a sailor he heard of the discovery of gold and left New York drawn by the Californ ...

(1823 - 1903) in 1859. 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 Los Peñasquitos 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, Capt. Johnson inherited the ranch by the time the U.S. government granted a patent to the land in 1876. State of California. ''Report of the Surveyor General 1844-1886''
The rancho was also a way station on the wagon road to

Warner's Ranch Warner's Ranch, near Warner Springs, California, was notable as a way station for large numbers of emigrants on the Southern Emigrant Trail from 1849 to 1861, as it was a stop on both the Gila River Trail and the Butterfield Overland Mail stageco ...

from

via San Pasqual and

Santa Ysabel Asistencia The Santa Ysabel Asistencia was founded on September 20, 1818 at Cañada de Santa Ysabel in the mountains east of San Diego (near the village of Elcuanan), as a asistencia or "sub-mission" to Mission San Diego de Alcalá, and to serve as a rest ...

, from the 1840s. From 1857 to 1860 the rancho was a way station on that road for the coaches of the San Antonio-San Diego Mail Line on the 125 mile route between San Diego and

Carrizo Creek Station Carrizo Creek Station, a former stage station of the San Antonio-San Diego Mail Line and Butterfield Overland Mail, located in Imperial County, California just east of the San Diego County line. It lies within the boundaries of the Anza-Borrego De ...

via the Warner's Ranch road, and the

Southern Emigrant Trail :''The Southern Emigrant Trail should not be confused with the Applegate Trail, which is part of the Northern Emigrant Trails.'' Southern Emigrant Trail, also known as the Gila Trail, the Kearny Trail, Southern Trail and the Butterfield Stage ...

. Passengers were given meals here, served by the lady of the house. Rancho Peñasquitos was 20 miles from San Diego and 16 miles from the next station at San Pasqual. Capt. Johnson sold the rancho in 1880 to Colonel Jacob Shell Taylor, founder of

Del Mar Del Mar is Spanish for "of the sea" or "from the sea". It may refer to: Places in the United States * Del Mar, California * Del Mar High School, located in San Jose, California * Del Mar racetrack, located in Del Mar, California * Del Mar Fai ...

. Charles F. Mohnike owned the ranch in 1910. In 1921 George Sawday and Oliver Sexon bought the ranch and stocked it with cattle. Real estate developer Irvin J. Kahn bought Rancho Peñasquitos in 1962.

Historic sites of the Rancho

'
Rancho de Los Peñasquitos
'' (''Little Cliffs Ranch'') is a historic 1823

adobe Adobe ( ; ) 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 used to refer to any kind of e ...

ranch home located in the

Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve is an urban park in San Diego, California. Stretching approximately , the park encompasses some of both Peñasquitos and Lopez canyons, and is one of the largest urban parks in the United States. The preserve is j ...

San Diego, California 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 States ...

. The San Diego County Parks & Recreation department offers tours on weekends. The area has

archeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology and ...

s, with artifacts found showing

indigenous people Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

living here for over six thousand years.

Natural history

The Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve park also preserves

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

on the former rancho lands for more than 500

plant species Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous) native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms ''gut flora'' or ''skin flora''. Ety ...

, with many being rare or

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

native plants In biogeography, a native species is indigenous to a given region or ecosystem if its presence in that region is the result of only local natural evolution (though often popularised as "with no human intervention") during history. The term is equi ...

in the

coastal sage scrub Coastal sage scrub, also known as coastal scrub, CSS, or soft chaparral, is a low scrubland plant community of the California coastal sage and chaparral subecoregion, found in coastal California and northwestern coastal Baja California. It is w ...

ecosystem An ecosystem (or ecological system) consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the syste ...

. This locale was known to be quite wooded with

riparian forest A riparian forest or riparian woodland is a forested or wooded area of land adjacent to a body of water such as a river, stream, pond, lake, marshland, estuary, canal, sink or reservoir. Etymology The term riparian comes from the Latin word '' ...

s and

oak woodland An oak woodland is a plant community with a tree canopy dominated by oaks (''Quercus spp.''). In terms of canopy closure, oak woodlands are intermediate between oak savanna, which is more open, and oak forest, which is more closed. Although the ...

s as late as the 1880s, at which time California state survey recommended preservation of the locale's trees and

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the ''plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (see ...

plant communities A plant community is a collection or association of plant species within a designated geographical unit, which forms a relatively uniform patch, distinguishable from neighboring patches of different vegetation types. The components of each plant co ...

to prevent further erosion and subsequent flooding, which had already occurred from areas of prior

deforestation Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. The most concentrated d ...

. Additional present-day park land acquisition and plant

restoration Restoration is the act of restoring something to its original state and may refer to: * Conservation and restoration of cultural heritage ** Audio restoration ** Film restoration ** Image restoration ** Textile restoration * Restoration ecology ...

is ongoing. State of California. ''Report of the Surveyor General 1844-1886''
A tree endemic to only this area is the

Torrey Pine The Torrey pine (''Pinus torreyana'') is a rare pine species in California, United States. It is a critically endangered species growing only in coastal San Diego County, and on Santa Rosa Island, offshore from Santa Barbara in Santa Barbara ...

, the rarest native pine in the United States and an

endangered species An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and inv ...

surviving in a single mainland population withi
Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve
and the adjacent coastal strip.http://www.torreypine.org/misc/related-links.html Torrey Pines State Reserve links . accessed 8/28/2010

References

External links

Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve: Founder's Trail Historic Sitesofficial Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve websiteofficial Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rancho Santa Maria de Los Penasquitos Santa Maria de Los Penasquitos Santa Maria de Los Penasquitos Adobe buildings and structures in California Museums in San Diego Historic house museums in California Houses in San Diego Historic districts in San Diego San Antonio–San Diego Mail Line Stagecoach stops in the United States 1823 in Alta California 1823 establishments in Alta California

History

Historic sites of the Rancho

Natural history

See also

References

External links