Rancho Potrero Grande
| Potrero Grande | |
|---|---|
| Land grant of Mexico | |
| 1845–1876 | |
| • Type | Mexican land grant |
| History | |
• Established | 1845 |
• Disestablished | 1876 |
| Today part of | The United States of America |
Rancho Potrero Grande is a 4,432-acre (17.94 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day Los Angeles County, California given in 1845 by Governor Pío Pico to Manuel Antonio.[1] The name means "Large Pasture". The grant encompassed present-day Rosemead and South El Monte.[2][3]
History
Manuel Antonio, an Indian, who was a mayordomo at the Mission San Gabriel was granted the one square league Rancho Potrero Grande - former Mission San Gabriel grazing land.
Juan Matias Sanchez[4] bought Rancho Potrero Grande adjacent to his Rancho La Merced property from Antonio.[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 Rancho Potrero Grande was filed with the Public Land Commission in 1852, [6] and the grant was patented to Juan M. Sanchez in 1859.[7]
In 1876 the Temple and Workman Bank failed, and Sanchez, who to help his friend William Workman, had mortgaged Rancho Potrero Grande to Elias J. "Lucky" Baldwin, lost it when Baldwin foreclosed.[8] Distraught and broke, William Workman shot himself in 1876. Temple suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed, and died penniless in 1880. Juan Matias Sanchez died in poverty in 1885.
References
- ^ Ogden Hoffman, 1862, Reports of Land Cases Determined in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, Numa Hubert, San Francisco
- ^ Diseño del Rancho Potrero Grande
- ^ Map of old Spanish and Mexican ranchos in Los Angeles County
- ^ Juan Matias Sanchez
- ^ Juan Matias Sanchez Adobe
- ^ United States. District Court (California : Southern District) Land Case 243 SD
- ^ Report of the Surveyor General 1844 - 1886 Archived 2013-03-20 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Baldwin v Temple, 1894, Reports of Cases Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of California, Vol. 101, pp. 396-404, Bancroft-Whitney Company