Rancho Milpitas

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Plat (map) of the Milpitas Rancho, 1862

Rancho Milpitas was a 4,457.66 acre (18.0 km²) Mexican rancho once located in what is now the city of Milpitas, California. The name comes from the Nahuatl word for maize and could be translated "little cornfields". The 1835 adobe ranch house once owned by the Alviso family to whom the rancho was granted still stands to the south east of the intersection of Piedmont and Calaveras streets at the edge of the city.

[edit] History

The land was originally granted to Nicolás Berryessa by alcalde of San José, Pedro Chaboya, on May 6, 1834. However, the land was also granted to José María Alviso by the governor of Alta California, José Castro on September 23, 1835.^[1] Alviso built the first story of the ranch house on the north east corner of the property and move his family there. After he died on 1853, Alviso's widow Juana Galindo Alviso married the rancho manager Jose Urridias. In 1856 the U.S. Land Commission confirmed Alviso's claim to the land, but eventually the family had to sell off most of the land to pay court fees to fight off American squatters.