Rancho Los Tularcitos was a Spanish land concession 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 1821 to José Loreto Higuera by the last Spanish governor of Alta California,

Pablo Vicente de Solá Pablo Vicente de Solá (1761–1826) was a Spanish officer and the twelfth and last Spanish colonial governor of Alta California (1815-1822). He was born in Mondragón, Gipuzkoa, Spain. Land grants Solá granted in 1821 the Rancho Rincón de los ...

. The land grant was confirmed by Mexican Governor Juan Alvarado in 1839. The name means "place of the little

Tule ''Schoenoplectus acutus'' (syn. ''Scirpus acutus, Schoenoplectus lacustris, Scirpus lacustris'' subsp. ''acutus''), called tule , common tule, hardstem tule, tule rush, hardstem bulrush, or viscid bulrush, is a giant species of sedge in the p ...

thickets". The rancho, in what is today central and northern

Milpitas Milpitas (Spanish for "little milpas") is a city in Santa Clara County, California, in Silicon Valley. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 80,273. The city's origins lie in Rancho Milpitas, granted to Californio ranchero José Mar� ...

, extended from the confluence of Calera and Pennitencia creeks in the northwest to a large live oak tree that marked its southeastern corner. South of Rancho Los Tularcitos was the land of 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 ...

History

Ygnacio Anastacio Higuera (1753–1805) came to California with the

De Anza Expedition Juan Bautista de Anza Bezerra Nieto (July 6 or 7, 1736 – December 19, 1788) was an expeditionary leader, military officer, and politician primarily in California and New Mexico under the Spanish Empire. He is credited as one of the founding fa ...

of 1776. Along the way, Ygnacio Higuera married Maria Micaela Bojorquez (1762–1794). Ygnacio Higuera was a soldier at the

Presidio of San Francisco 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 ...

. He moved to the Pueblo of San José, and was killed in 1805. Ygnacio's son, Jose Loreto Higuera (1778–1845), married Maria Pilar Sanchez (1778–1811) in 1794. After she died, José Higuera married Ramona Bernal (1794–1831) in 1813. Between 1817 and 1822, Spanish Governor Sola made several land grants, and José Loreto Higuera was awarded Rancho Los Tularcitos in 1821. José Higuera married Ramona Garcia (1812 - ) in 1832. In 1836 José Loreto Higuera's son, Fulgencio Higuera, was the grantee of Rancho Agua Caliente. In 1843, his son Valentin Higuera was the grantee of Rancho Pescadero. The Rancho Los Tularcitos land grant to Jose Higuera was confirmed by Mexican Governor Alvarado in 1839. 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 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% of Mexica ...

, 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 Tularcitos 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 ...

in 1852, and the grant

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 Antonia Higuera et al., the heirs of Jose Higuera in 1870. The beginning of the break-up of the rancho is said to have begun with the land given to José Loreto Higuera's grand daughter, daughter of Valentin Higuera, Maria Margarita Higuera, when she married Nicolas Chavarria. Henry Curtner (1830–1917) purchased Rancho Tularcitos in 1868.

Historic sites of the Rancho

*José Higuera Adobe. Soon after being given the land, José Higuera built a one story adobe for what would be, his fourteen children from three marriages.Higuera Adobe
/ref>

References

{{California history Tularcitos, Los Los Tularcitos Buildings and structures in Milpitas, California

Los LOS, or Los, or LoS may refer to: Science and technology * Length of stay, the duration of a single episode of hospitalisation * Level of service, a measure used by traffic engineers * Level of significance, a measure of statistical significance ...