Rancho Los Cerritos was a 27,054-acre (109.48 km2) 1834 land grant in present-day southern Los Angeles County and Orange County, California[1][2] The grant was the result of a partition of the Rancho Los Nietos grant. "Cerritos" means "little hills" in Spanish. The rancho lands include the present-day cities of Cerritos, Paramount, Bellflower and Long Beach.[3][4]
History
editAt 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. Manuela Nieto (daughter of Manuel Nieto) and her husband Guillermo Cota received Los Cerritos.
Jonathan Temple married Rafaela Cota in 1830, and in 1843, he purchased Rancho Los Cerritos from the Cota family.
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 Rancho Los Cerritos was filed with the Public Land Commission in 1852[5][6] and Temple received the US patent for the rancho in 1867.[7][8] Following the drought of 1863–64, Temple sold the rancho to Flint, Bixby & Co. in 1866.
Historic sites of the Rancho
edit- Rancho Los Cerritos Ranch House. Adobe hacienda built by Jonathan Temple in 1844.
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ Spanish and Mexican Ranchos of Orange County Archived 2011-07-26 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Map of old Spanish and Mexican ranchos in Los Angeles County
- ^ Diseño del Rancho Los Cerritos
- ^ U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Rancho Los Cerritos
- ^ United States. District Court (California : Southern District) Land Case 17 SD
- ^ Finding Aid to the Documents Pertaining to the Adjudication of Private Land Claims in California, circa 1852-1892
- ^ The Story of Cerritos: A History in Progress, by Marilyn Cenovich, 1995
- ^ Report of the Surveyor General 1844–1886 Archived 2013-03-20 at the Wayback Machine