Rancho San Miguel was a

Mexican land grant In Alta California (now known as California) and Baja California, ranchos were concessions and land grants made by the Spanish and Mexican governments from 1775 to 1846. The Spanish concessions of land were made to retired soldiers as an indu ...

in present-day

San Francisco County, California San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

. The land grant was given in 1845 by Governor

Pío Pico Don (honorific), Don Pío de Jesús Pico IV (May 5, 1801 – September 11, 1894) was a California politician, ranchero, and entrepreneur, famous for serving as the List of governors of California before 1850, last governor of Alta California und ...

José de Jesús Noé José de Jesús Noé (1805 – 17 March 1862) was a Californio politician, soldier, and ranchero, who served as the 7th and 12th Alcalde of San Francisco. He is the last Hispanic Californian (Californio) to serve as Mayor of San Francisco. Li ...

. It included what is now known as Eureka Valley, and extended past Mount Davidson almost to present-day

Daly City Daly City () is the second-most populous city in San Mateo County, California, United States. Located in the San Francisco Bay Area, and immediately south of San Francisco (sharing its northern border with almost all of San Francisco's southern ...

; it encompassed the present-day San Francisco neighborhoods of

Noe Valley Noe Valley ( ; originally spelt Noé) is a neighborhood in the central part of San Francisco, California. It is named for Don José de Jesús Noé, noted 19th-century Californio statesman and ranchero, who owned much of the area and served as A ...

the Castro The Castro District, commonly referred to as the Castro, is a neighborhood in Eureka Valley in San Francisco. The Castro was one of the first gay neighborhoods in the United States. Having transformed from a working-class neighborhood throug ...

, Glen Park, Diamond Heights and St. Francis Wood.

History

José de Jesús Noé (1805-1862) was born in Puebla, Mexico. He came to California with his wife, Guadalupe Garduno, in 1834 with the Hijar-Padres Colony. During the last years of Mexican rule in California, he held several administrative posts in San Francisco. He was

alcalde ''Alcalde'' (; ) is the traditional Spanish municipal magistrate, who had both judicial and Administration (government), administrative functions. An ''alcalde'' was, in the absence of a corregidor (position), corregidor, the presiding officer o ...

in 1842 and in part of 1846. He received the one square league Rancho San Miguel grant in 1845. 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 jurisdicti ...

of California to the United States following the

Mexican-American War Mexican Americans are Americans of full or partial Mexican descent. In 2022, Mexican Americans comprised 11.2% of the US population and 58.9% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans. In 2019, 71% of Mexican Americans were born in the United State ...

, the 1848

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo officially ended the Mexican–American War (1846–1848). It was signed on 2 February 1848 in the town of Villa de Guadalupe, Mexico City, Guadalupe Hidalgo. After the defeat of its army and the fall of the cap ...

provided that land grants would be honored. As required by the Land Act of 1851, a claim for Rancho San Miguel 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 the California State Lands Commission to determine the validity of prior Spanish and Mexican l ...

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 ...

to Noé in 1857. After his wife died in 1848, leaving three sons, Noé began selling Rancho San Miguel. In 1854, he sold a large part of it to John Meirs Horner and his brother William J. Horner. By the time Noé obtained a US land patent to Rancho San Miguel in 1857, he had already sold much of it. He died in 1862 and passed what remained of the rancho to his children. By 1862, French financier François Louis Alfred Pioche owned most of the rancho, but lost it in a

foreclosure Foreclosure is a legal process in which a lender attempts to recover the balance of a loan from a borrower who has Default (finance), stopped making payments to the lender by forcing the sale of the asset used as the Collateral (finance), coll ...

sale in 1878. In 1880, former

Mayor of San Francisco The mayor of the City and County of San Francisco is the head of the executive branch of the Government of San Francisco, San Francisco city and county government. The officeholder has the duty to enforce city laws, and the power to either appro ...

Adolph Sutro Adolph Heinrich Joseph Sutro (April 29, 1830 – August 8, 1898) was a German-American engineer, politician and philanthropist who served as the 24th mayor of San Francisco from 1895 until 1897. Born a German Jew, he moved to Virginia City ...

bought the northwesterly portion. In 1895, Noé's contended that his sale to Horner was illegal, and unsuccessfully sued to have half of the rancho land, their mother's share, restored to them.Noe Valley Land Suit
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References

{{California history San Miguel(Noe) San Miguel(Noe)

History

See also

References