Rancho Santa Gertrudes

Rancho Santa Gertrudes was a 21,298-acre (86.19 km²) 1834 Mexican land grant, in present day Los Angeles County, California, resulting from a partition of Rancho Los Nietos. A former site of Nacaugna, the rancho lands included the present day cities of Downey and Santa Fe Springs.^[1][2]

History

At the request of Manuel Nieto heirs, governor José Figueroa in 1834, officially declared the 167,000-acre (680 km²) Rancho Los Nietos grant under Mexican rule and ordered its partition into five smaller ranchos: Las Bolsas, Los Alamitos, Los Cerritos, Los Coyotes, and Santa Gertrudes.^[3]

Josefa Cota (widow of Antonio Maria Nieto, son of Manuel Nieto) received the Rancho Santa Gertrudes grant.^[4] Lemuel Carpenter (1808–1859), who had married Maria de Los Angeles Dominguez, a niece of Josefa Cota, bought the rancho in 1843 from Josefa Cota, his aunt by marriage.^[5]

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 for part of Rancho Santa Gertrudes was filed Lemuel Carpenter with the Public Land Commission in 1852.^[6][7] Carpenter, who was deeply in debt to John G. Downey, killed himself in 1859. In 1859 the rancho was sold at a sheriff's auction to John G. Downey and James P. McFarland. 17,602 acres (71.2 km²) of the grant was patented to McFarland and Downey in 1870.^[8]

A claim for part of Rancho Santa Gertrudes was filed by Thomas Sanchez Colima with the Public Land Commission in 1852,^[9][10] and 3,696 acres (15.0 km²) of the grant was patented to Thomas Sanchez Colima in 1877.^[11]

Historic sites of the Rancho

• Hathaway Ranch Museum^[12]
• Historical Railroad Exhibit
• Ranchos of California
• List of Ranchos of California

References

Coordinates: 33°57′00″N 118°03′36″W / 33.950°N 118.060°W / 33.950; -118.060

External links

• Map of old Spanish and Mexican ranchos in Los Angeles County