Rancho Las Putas 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 Napa County, California given in 1843 by Governor Manuel Micheltorena to José de Jesús Berreyesa and Sexto "Sisto" Berreyesa. The name ''Las Putas'' came from

Putah Creek Putah Creek (Patwin: ''Liwaito'') is a major stream in Northern California, a tributary of the Yolo Bypass, and ultimately, the Sacramento River. The creek has its headwaters in the Mayacamas Mountains, a part of the Coast Range, and flow ...

, which ran through the property. Most of the grant is now covered by

Lake Berryessa Lake Berryessa is the largest lake in Napa County, California. This reservoir in the Vaca Mountains was formed following the construction of the Monticello Dam on Putah Creek in the 1950s. Since the early 1960s, this reservoir has provided wate ...

History

The Berryessa Valley was about long and at its widest, with Putah Creek running through its center.

Pomo people The Pomo are an Indigenous people of California. Historical Pomo territory in Northern California was large, bordered by the Pacific Coast to the west, extending inland to Clear Lake, and mainly between Cleone and Duncans Point. One small gr ...

lived in relative ease on the rich land, as wildlife and plant foodstuffs were plentiful, but they were forcibly removed from their land by both Spanish and American Settlers.

Berreyesa family

Nasario Antonio Berreyesa was born into the

Berreyesa family The Berryessa family is a prominent Californio family of Northern California. Members of the family held extensive rancho grants across the Bay Area during 18th and 19th centuries. Numerous places are named after the family, including the Be ...

Mission Santa Clara de Asís Mission Santa Clara de Asís ( es, Misión Santa Clara de Asís) is a Spanish mission in the city of Santa Clara, California. The mission, which was the eighth in California, was founded on January 12, 1777, by the Franciscan order. Named for ...

on July 28, 1787. Nicknamed José, Berreyesa married María de Jesus Antonia Villela (born October 6, 1793) in 1806. The couple had eleven children, including José de Jesus born January 31, 1815 and Sexto "Sisto" Antonio born on March 28, 1818. Both brothers were born in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " 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 fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

and christened at

Mission San Francisco de Asís Mission San Francisco de Asís ( es, Misión San Francisco de Asís), commonly known as Mission Dolores (as it was founded near the Dolores creek), is a Spanish Californian mission and the oldest surviving structure in San Francisco. Located i ...

.FamilyTreeMaker.com
''Descendants of Luis Cayetano (Berrelleza) Berreyesa''
. Retrieved on August 14, 2009. Nasario Antonio "José" Berreyesa served as a corporal at the

San Francisco Presidio The Presidio of San Francisco (originally, El Presidio Real de San Francisco or The Royal Fortress of Saint Francis) is a park and former U.S. Army post on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula in San Francisco, California, and is part o ...

during 1819–1824, then moved to become the original settler of the Berryessa Valley in the 1830s. Berreyesa forced 100

natives 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 ...

to help him manage his livestock—a herd which soon grew to 5,000 cattle and 20,000 horses, and extended eastward over Berryessa Peak into

Capay Valley Capay Valley is a mostly rural valley northwest of Sacramento in Yolo County, California, United States. It lies east of Blue Ridge and west of the Capay Hills. Geography Cache Creek flows through the valley. California State Route 16 crosses ...

.BellaVistaRanch.net. Suisun History. Kristin Delaplane
''Part 1 - Berreyesas inundated long before lake formed''.
Retrieved on August 14, 2009. The nearby hills held deer and bear. Established trails made it possible for men, horses and cattle to find their way through the hills into Capay Valley. Sons Sisto Antonio and José de Jesus served in the Mexican army, stationed in San Francisco, from the 1830s to 1842. In 1838, the two men married twin sisters: José de Jesus married María Anastasia Higuera, and Sisto Antonio married María Nicolasa Higuera.
/ref> In 1842, Nasario Antonio Berreyesa petitioned the Mexican Governor for a grant of eight square leagues in the names of his sons Sisto Antonio and José de Jesus Berreyesa. The Governor ordered that a title issue to the petitioners for "...as much of the land as they could settle." For some unexplained reason, the Berreyesa brothers considered that the grant was for only four square leagues, and on the following day, October 28, 1843, they presented a second petition, in which they stated that their families were very large, and included their parents, children, and brothers, and asked for a grant of eight square leagues. On this second petition, a grant was issued to José de Jesus Berreyesa and Sisto Berreyesa. The brothers built adobe estate houses about a third of the way up the valley,BellaVistaRanch.net. Suisun History. Carole Noske

Retrieved on August 14, 2009. beginning with a hacienda for Sisto, then a one for José de Jesus. They expanded the livestock operation of their father to include a sizable grain harvest, and they enjoyed gambling and racing horses. Millstones for some of the first gristmills in Alta California were quarried from the upper northwest Putah Canyon, near a difficult and tortuous road out of Berryessa Valley into Napa Valley, a two-day trip by mule team. After California was ceded to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

in the

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 ...

in 1848, the Berreyesas filed the claim with the American Public Land Commission in their wives' names in 1852, and the grant was patented to María Anastasia Higuera de Berreyesa and María Nicolasa Higuera de Berreyesa in 1863.Wallace, W. F., editor
''History of Napa County, comprising an account of its geographical position and area; the origin of its name; topography, geology, springs, water courses and climate; township system; early settlements, with descriptions and scenes as viewed by the pioneers; the Indians; the discovery of gold and other minerals; the progress of population and agriculture; the Mexican grants; principal homicides; incidents of settlements; elections and history of its cities and towns, churches and schools, secret societies, etc., etc.; as also a full and particular biography of its pioneers and principal inhabitants.''
Oakland, California. 1901. The men used their wives' names so that the men could stand witness in front of the Public Land Commission regarding their grant and not have the commission use their interest in the claim against them.FamilyTreeMaker.com

. Retrieved on August 14, 2009. By 1853, José de Jesus and Sisto Berreyesa had sold minor parcels of Rancho Las Putas, referred to as Berryessa Ranch by the

Anglo Anglo is a prefix indicating a relation to, or descent from, the Angles, England, English culture, the English people or the English language, such as in the term ''Anglosphere''. It is often used alone, somewhat loosely, to refer to peopl ...

settlers, to pay gambling debts. They owed Edward Schultz $1,645 but couldn't pay him in cash; Schultz petitioned the county to auction a major section of the Berreyesa holdings. Schultz paid only $2,000 for the huge parcel, and quickly resold it for $100,000 to a consortium of developers.U.S. Department of the Interior. Bureau of Reclamation
''Early History of Lake Berryessa''
Retrieved on August 14, 2009. José de Jesus and Sisto saved four square miles (2560 acres, or 10 km²) for themselves. However, other family members contended that they owned part of the larger Rancho, based on the second grant petition which mentioned extended family. Miguel Santiago Berreyesa (b. 1831) in ''Berreyesa v Schultz'', and Jesse Loyd Beasley (1814–1899), who married Clara Berreyesa (b. 1823) in 1848, in ''Schultz v Beasley'', sued for ownership.''Berreyesa v Schultz'' — ''Schultz v Beasly'', ''Reports of cases determined in the Supreme Court of the state of California'', April 1863, Bancroft-Whitney, 1906, pp. 513–543 Beginning in 1858, a toll road was operated by Adam See and his family, called the Putah Creek Canyon Turnpike. It shuttled people and goods eastward from Berryessa Valley to

Winters, California Winters is a city in rural Yolo County, and the western Sacramento Valley, in northern California. The population of Winters was 6,624 as of the 2010 Census. It is part of the Sacramento–Arden-Arcade–Yuba City, CA-NV Combined Statistical A ...

and back. Sisto Berreyesa and his brother José de Jesús both died in 1874. They were buried in Berryessa Valley.

Monticello

In 1866, the developer holding the majority of land in the valley divided Rancho Las Putas into smaller parcels to sell to farmers, and

plat In the United States, a plat ( or ) (plan) is a cadastral map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. United States General Land Office surveyors drafted township plats of Public Lands Surveys to show the distance and bea ...

ted a town called

Monticello Monticello ( ) was the primary plantation of Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, who began designing Monticello after inheriting land from his father at age 26. Located just outside Charlottesville, V ...

. Within a year, the valley was filled with farmers who enjoyed mild winters and bountiful harvests, especially of wheat. By 1870, Monticello contained a cemetery, a general store, blacksmith shops, hotels and various other businesses. In 1875, the toll road was opened to become a public road, maintained by the county. A four- and six-horse stagecoach ran from the 300 men working at the remote quicksilver mining town of Knoxville south through to Monticello, where the horses were changed, then west to Napa. The first adobe belonging to Sisto Berreyesa was left to ruin, but the second was held by a settler named Abraham Clark. In 1900 and 1901, news of a high-quality oil strike in Berryessa Valley brought speculators and experts in drilling.

Damming Putah Creek

In 1896, a heavy stone bridge with three large arches was built across Putah Ceek about from Monticello, along the road leading to Napa. The bridge cost $19,500 and, at long, was the largest stone bridge west of the

Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico ...

. The well-engineered bridge survived the swollen flood of Putah Creek every winter thenceforward. As early as 1906, proposals were put forward to dam Putah Creek to form a reservoir. In 1907, the Mulholland-Goethals-Davis plan proposed a dam at Devil's Gate, the southeastern limit of the valley. Other plans were formulated. No proposal was acted upon until 1947 when

Solano County Solano County () is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 453,491. The county seat is Fairfield. Solano County comprises the Vallejo–Fairfield, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area, which i ...

and the

United States Bureau of Reclamation The Bureau of Reclamation, and formerly the United States Reclamation Service, is a federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees water resource management, specifically as it applies to the oversight and opera ...

together formed the Solano Project, a combination of water plans including

Monticello Dam Monticello Dam is a high concrete arch dam in Napa County, California, United States, constructed between 1953 and 1957. The dam impounded Putah Creek to create Lake Berryessa in the Vaca Mountains. Lake Berryessa is currently the seventh-large ...

, the Putah Diversion Dam, the Putah South Canal, the Terminal Dam and Reservoir, the Green Valley Conduit and various related water distribution systems. Residents of Monticello protested, but California Governor Earl Warren and Solano County promoted the dam. Residents started leaving the valley.BellaVistaRanch.net. Suisun History. Nancy Dingler
''Part 3 - Fifty years since the birth of the Monticello Dam''.
Retrieved on August 14, 2009.

Dorothea Lange Dorothea Lange (born Dorothea Margaretta Nutzhorn; May 26, 1895 – October 11, 1965) was an American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her Great Depression, Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administratio ...

and

Pirkle Jones Pirkle Jones (January 2, 1914 – March 15, 2009) was an American documentary photographer and educator. Biography Pirkle Jones was born in Shreveport, Louisiana. His first experience with photography was when he bought a Kodak Brownie at th ...

were commissioned to shoot a photographic documentary of the death of the town, and of the displacement of its residents, for ''Life'', but the magazine did not run the piece. Lange's ''Aperture'' magazine, however, devoted one whole issue to the photojournalists' work. Construction of the dam began in 1953. Vegetation in the valley was chopped down, fences torn down and buildings demolished. The cemetery was moved to Spanish Flat, a bluff overlooking the valley. The Putah Creek Bridge, too well made to easily demolish, was left in place to be covered by the rising waters. Monticello Dam was completed in 1957, and Lake Berryessa was formed.

References

External links