Rancho Santa Anita was a 13,319-acre (53.90 km2) land grant in present day Los Angeles County, California given to Perfecto Hugo Reid. The land grant was formally recognized by Governor Pio Pico in 1845.[1] The land grant covered all or portions of the present day cities of Arcadia, Monrovia, Sierra Madre, Pasadena and San Marino.[2][3] A small portion of the rancho has been preserved as the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden.[4]
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Reid was a Scot who became a Mexican citizen, thus being eligible to own Mexican land. To comply with Mexican law for the land grant, he built an adobe house and lived here with his wife, Victoria.[5] In 1847, Reid sold Rancho Santa Anita to his Rancho Azusa neighbor, Henry Dalton.
With the cession of California to the United States following the Mexican-American War, the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo provided that the land grants would be honored. As required by the Land Act of 1851, a claim was filed with the Public Land Commission in 1852,[6] and the grant was patented to Henry Dalton in 1866.[7]
In 1858 Albert Dibblee (1816-1895) and William Corbett bought the rancho and who held it until 1864. The land then passed to the Wolfskills who sold it in 1872 to Los Angeles merchant Harris Newmark. In 1875, Newmark sold Rancho Santa Anita to Elias Jackson (“Lucky”) Baldwin.[4][8]
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