El Rancho Rinconada de los Gatos 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 ...
made in 1840 by Governor
Juan Alvarado to Jose Maria Hernandez and Sebastian Fabian Peralta. Located in the southern
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...
, the grant included present-day
Los Gatos
Los Gatos (, ; ) is an incorporated town in Santa Clara County, California, United States. The population is 33,529 according to the 2020 census. It is located in the San Francisco Bay Area just southwest of San Jose in the foothills of th ...
and
Monte Sereno, along with about a third of
Campbell Campbell may refer to:
People Surname
* Campbell (surname), includes a list of people with surname Campbell
Given name
* Campbell Brown (footballer), an Australian rules footballer
* Campbell Brown (journalist) (born 1968), American television ne ...
. It also included small sections of present-day
San Jose,
Saratoga and unincorporated Santa Clara County.
Los Gatos Creek flowed through the center of the rancho. The name means "corner of the cats" and is derived from the
cougar
The cougar (''Puma concolor'') is a large Felidae, cat native to the Americas. Its Species distribution, range spans from the Canadian Yukon to the southern Andes in South America and is the most widespread of any large wild terrestrial mamm ...
s that are still present in the nearby hills, as well as the "corner" formed by the narrowing gap between
El Sereno and
El Sombroso
The Santa Cruz Mountains, part of the Pacific Coast Ranges, are a mountain range in central and Northern California, United States. They form a ridge down the San Francisco Peninsula, south of San Francisco. They separate the Pacific Ocean fro ...
mountains.
History
Sebastian Peralta and José Hernandez, brothers-in-law married to two Sibrian sisters, were granted the one and one half square league Rancho Rinconada de Los Gatos in 1840. Sebastian Fabian Peralta (1794–?) married María Gregoria Sibrian (1806–1837) in 1831. After she died, he married María Paula Sepulveda, widow of
Francisco Pérez Pacheco, in 1846. He was regidor of
San José. José Maria Hernandez (1802–?) married Maria Gertrudis Sibrian (1810–1851) in 1830. After she died, he married Maria Espectacion Pena. They built an adobe home where Vasona Park is now.
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 Rinconada de Los Gatos 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 Sebastian Peralta and José Hernandez in 1860.
Approximately were sold to
James Alexander Forbes (1805–1881) in 1853, whereupon he built
Forbes Mill
Forbes Mill is a now-defunct flour mill originally built in 1854 located in Los Gatos, California, which served as the History Museum of Los Gatos after having been saved from destruction in 1982. The museum closed in 2014, and its collections are ...
. The mill began operating in 1855, but Forbes went bankrupt in 1857.
Three cities have been incorporated containing large sections of land from the grant: Los Gatos in 1887, Campbell in 1952, and Monte Sereno in 1957.
Grant boundaries
The natural lake in what is now
Los Gatos Creek Park was on the Eastern boundary.
San Tomas Aquino Creek
San Tomas Aquinas Creek, known locally as San Tomas Aquino Creek, is a streamU.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed August 25, 2011 that heads on El Sereno mountain in El Sereno ...
flowed around the Western and Northwestern edges. Ross Creek was in the Southeast. The boundaries, denoted with modern landmarks, were:
[Boundaries shown with a red dashed line on a 2001 Rand McNally San Jose Street Map]
* The Northwestern and Western boundary followed San Tomas Aquino Creek from John D. Morgan Park, North of
Westmont High School, and along Quito Road & Austin Way
* The Western corner was near where San Tomas Aquino Creek meets Canon Drive
* The Southwestern boundary roughly parallels
State Route 9 about 0.75 miles to its Southwest
* The Southwest corner was near the Santa Cruz Avenue exit of
State Route 17
* The Southeast corner was near where Kennedy Road crosses Ross Creek
* The Eastern corner was near the corner of Camino del Cerro and
Blossom Hill Road
* The Northern boundary was at Rincon Avenue across the North end of
John D. Morgan Park in central Campbell
See also
*
References
{{Santa Clara County, California
Rinconada de Los Gatos
Rinconada de Los Gatos
Campbell, California
Los Gatos, California
Rinconada de Los Gatos