Tag Archives: Rancho Ex-Mission San Fernando

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Placerita Canyon, site of the first gold strike in California in 1842. Some $80,000 dollars of gold was washed out of this sandy arroyo in pans, carried in saddlebags to Los Angeles, assayed and bought up by Abel Stearns, schlepped on to San Pedro, loaded onto a California clipper, put into the captain’s safe, and shipped around the Horn to the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia. There, it was coined into gold dollars.

Originally called Canyon de los Encinos (”of the Oaks”), the spot has been known since the gold strike as “Placerita.” A placer is a deposit of scattered surface gold, in a meadow or along the bottom of a canyon, and usually among the sands and gravel of an arroyo or a wash.  Thus, this canada is a “sweet little placer.” It is also a protected treasure trove of Southern California native plants.

Francisco Lopez was the mayordomo – ranch overseer – for the del Valle family who owned Rancho San Francisco. The colorful legend of the Lopez discovery is told on the plaques. Thanks to the local realtors; their supplementary plaque augments the facts-only state plaque. (The realtors’ plaque records the oral legend about Lopez’s dream. Foundation-myth romance is a realtor’s stock-in-trade; their interest suffers when local history is swindled of its romance. Why not give Lopez a dream?)

An El Camino Real Bell, beloved California symbol of historical memory, has recently been presented to the Romulo Pico Adobe, aka the Andres Pico Adobe. This is an exciting acquisition for a very interesting Los Angeles landmark, which deserves more attention from history buffs and tourists.

The 1834 adobe sits a stone’s throw from the Mission Convento. It is the second oldest house in Los Angeles (Avila’s is first), and the oldest in the Valley. It was the home of the mayordomo of Pico’s sprawling and productive Rancho Ex-Mission San Fernando, and was probably built by the mayordomo, who was Valentin Lopez.

The building in his day was much smaller than it is now. Andres’s (illegitimate?) heir Romulo moved in and made additions, then it fell into ruin in the late 19th century, like many rancho adobes. In the 1920s it was rescued by the Southwest Museum’s curator, Mark Harrington, who rebuilt the casa with his wife for their own home. They added the second floor, and many comfortable amenities, to make the place into a proper hacienda.

Today the adobe makes a fitting home for the San Fernando Valley Historical Society, which runs free tours on Sundays and Mondays, and also makes available its library of California historical materials.

Rancho land grants of Los Angeles, as documented by land-tiitle demon W.W. Robinson.  The course of the LA River and its centrality to the Rancho system is clear, though it is a bit more fancifully depicted than the grant boundary lines. 

Also it must be remembered that until an earthquake in 1825, the LA River turned right after leaving the Pueblo and ran through Westlake, La Cienega, and Culver City, entering the Bay via Ballona Creek. This may help explain why the grants seem more densely packed on the Westside; they once may have been well watered, and therefore rich with fertile bottom-land.

Valley Village, of course, lies in Rancho Ex-Mission San Fernando, just north of the LA river. The peremptory name of this grant is, I think, unique in California. I suspect it was given to the land by the brothers Pio and Andres Pico, who split the land between themselves in the days just before the American conquest.  

By designating it “Ex-Mission San Fernando”, the Picos seem to be showing their anti-clerical colors, and advertising the new California power regime. It may have even been an example of LA pobladores taking revenge on the power-grasping Missionaries, rubbing the Franciscans’ noses in the loss of their once-magnificent San Fernando.  Andres Pico even moved his family right into the crumbling Mission convento, with its amazing Moorish fountains.