The
Romance of the
Ranchos
by
E. PALMER CONNER
Chief Title Searcher
Title Insurance and Trust Company
433 South Spring Street
Los Angeles
Reprinted by permission from the Los Angeles Times
Fifth Edition
Old Plaza Church
“Where Los Angeles began”
Ranchos of California
Picture a map of California cut up into Ranchos like a crazy quilt, dotted with twenty-one Missions and a handful of Pueblos. Picture a people browned by the sun, happy, prosperous and carefree. Picture a white-walled hacienda on each of the ranchos, every one open with a never failing hospitality and welcome. That was California when the Americans took it.
With the advent of American ownership the tide of population turned to California in a never ending stream. By sail, steamboat, covered wagon and finally by train came a new people. The great Spanish ranchos soon passed to new owners and took on a new character. There is a record of Spanish ranchos traded for nearly every commodity and necessity. Ranchos like the Malibu and the Centinela exchanged for wines and groceries, the Los Alamitos bought with hides and tallow, the La Canada deeded for an attorney’s fee, ranchos for horses, for vines, for surveyor’s fees and many ranchos for mortgages.
It was a period of rare honor. Don Abel Stearns refused to take advantage of a technicality in his favor and lost a 29,000 acre rancho. Juan Matias Sanchez to help his friends, William Workman and F. P. F. Temple, signed their mortgage to “Lucky” Baldwin and lost his own rancho in the San Gabriel Valley, wholly without consideration.