Rancho Tres Ojos de Agua 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 Cruz County, California Santa Cruz County (), officially the County of Santa Cruz, is a county on the Pacific coast of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 270,861. The county seat is Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz County comprises the Santa ...

given in 1844 by Governor

Manuel Micheltorena Joseph Manuel María Joaquin Micheltorena y Llano (8 June 1804 – 7 September 1853) was a brigadier general of the Mexican Army, adjutant-general of the same, governor, commandant-general and inspector of the department of Las Californias, then ...

to Nicolás Dodero. The name translates literally as "three eyes of water" (springs). The grant was located on both sides of present-day High Street around its intersection with Spring Street, in Santa Cruz.

History

Nicolas Dodero (1804-1866) was an Italian sailor who left the ''Maria Ester'' at San Francisco in 1827. He was living in 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 ...

in 1829, and married Josefa Patricia Higuera (1810-1883) at

Mission Santa Clara Mission (from Latin ''missio'' "the act of sending out") may refer to: Organised activities Religion *Christian mission, an organized effort to spread Christianity *Mission (LDS Church), an administrative area of The Church of Jesus Christ of ...

in 1832. Naturalized at the

Villa de Branciforte Branciforte, originally named Villa de Branciforte, was the last of only three secular ''pueblos'' founded by the Spanish colonial government of Alta California. The pueblo was established in 1797 on the eastern bluff of the San Lorenzo River, fac ...

in 1840, Dodero was granted the 1,300 varas square Rancho Tres Ojos de Agua in 1844. There he built a

Grist mill A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and Wheat middlings, middlings. The term can refer to either the Mill (grinding), grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist i ...

on the creek formed by three springs from limestone formations on the hill above. Below the mill, the perennial creeks from these springs were the original water supply for

Mission Santa Cruz Mission Santa Cruz (''La Misión de la Exaltación de la Santa Cruz'', which translates as the Mission of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross), was the twelfth of twenty-one Spanish missions in California (today's U.S. state), established by the Fr ...

, via a mile-long ''zanja'' (in-ground aqueduct). In the 1850s, after the aqueduct passed the mission plaza, it was captured by a reservoir that fed the first Santa Cruz city water supply system. Dodero died in 1866; he and his wife are buried at Holy Cross cemetery in Santa Cruz. 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 Santa Cruz 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 1853, 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 Nicolas Dodero in 1866. The land passed into the hands to Nelson Alvin Bixby (1829–1904) who came overland and arrived in the Santa Cruz area in 1859. Bixby sold it to Henry Meyrick in 1877. Henry Meyrick built the

Hotel Del Monte The Hotel Del Monte was a large resort hotel in Monterey, California, from its opening in 1880 until 1942. It was one of the finest luxury hotels in North America. During World War II, it closed and the building was leased to the United State ...

in Monterey. In 1906, Charles C. Moore bought the property. Charles Caldwell Moore (1868–1932) was a prominent San Franciscan businessman who was the president of the

Panama–Pacific International Exposition The Panama–Pacific International Exposition was a world's fair held in San Francisco, California, United States, from February 20 to December 4, 1915. Its stated purpose was to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal, but it was widely se ...

in San Francisco in 1915. The springs remain today; the most visible one feeds Westlake, where there's a city park.Westlake Park
/ref>

References

{{California history Tres Ojos de Agua Ranchos of Santa Cruz County, California Santa Cruz, California