Rancho El Rio de Santa Clara o la Colonia was a 44,883-acre (181.64 km2)Mexican land grant in present-dayVentura County, California, given in 1837 by GovernorJuan B. Alvarado to seven people.[1] The grant extended from theSanta Clara River south to the present-dayPoint Mugu Naval Air Station, and the boundary ofRancho Guadalasca, and east from the Pacific Ocean to the present-day101 Freeway, and the boundary ofRancho Santa Clara del Norte. The grant encompassed much of theOxnard Plain.[2]
The grant was made to seven formerPresidio of Santa Barbara soldiers: Valentine Cota, Salvador Valenzuela, Vicente Pico, Rafael Valdez, Vincent Feliz, Leandro Gonzales, and Rafael Gonzales. Valentine Cota, the corporal of the guard atMission Santa Inés. Jose Vicente Pico (1797-1863) married Maria Estefana Bruno Garcia in 1822. Rafael Gonzales built theRafael Gonzalez House and was lateralcalde ofSanta Barbara.
With thecession of California to the United States following theMexican-American War, the 1848Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo provided that the land grants would be honored. As required by the Land Act of 1851, a claim for Rancho El Rio de Santa Clara o la Colonia was filed with thePublic Land Commission in 1852,[3][4] and the grant waspatented to Valenta Cota et al. in 1872.[5]
In the 1860s,Thomas R. Bard agent forThomas Alexander Scott and his Philadelphia and California Petroleum Company, bought a five sevenths undivided share of El Rio de Santa Clara o la Colonia. The Gonzales family refused to sell other two sevenths share to Bard and instead sold to the Camarillo family.[6]
34°11′24″N119°11′24″W / 34.190°N 119.190°W /34.190; -119.190
Municipalities and communities ofVentura County, California,United States | ||
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| Footnotes | ‡This populated place also has portions in an adjacent county or counties | |