Rancho Los Nietos

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Rancho Los Nietos, awarded to Manuel Nieto in 1784, was the largest Spanish land grant in Alta California. It was 300,000 acres (1,200 km²), extending from the San Gabriel River, now the Los Angeles River, to the west, and the Santa Ana River to the east. The road from Mission San Gabriel to Mission San Diego, El Camino Real, formed the northern boundary (about where Whittier Boulevard is now), and the Pacific ocean was the boundary on the south. The priests at Mission San Gabriel protested that Nieto's land encroached on theirs, so some land was pared away, but enough remained that it was still the largest rancho granted. At first it was called La Zanja, but later it was known simply as Rancho Los Nietos.

Today, parts of Long Beach, Lakewood, Downey, Norwalk, Santa Fe Springs, Whittier, Fullerton, Huntington Beach, Bolsa Chica State Beach, Seal Beach, Anaheim, Buena Park, Garden Grove, and many smaller cities including Artesia and Cerritos are located on what was once the enormous Nieto Rancho.

[edit] Mexican land grants

On May 22, 1834, Alta California governor José Figueroa officially declared the Los Nietos grant under Mexican rule and ordered its partition into six smaller ranchos: Las Bolsas, Los Alamitos, Los Cerritos, Los Coyotes, Santa Gertrudes and Palo Alto. Juan José Nieto received Rancho Los Alamitos, 28,612 acres; (115.79 km²), Rancho Los Coyotes 48,806 acres; (197.51 km²) and Rancho Palo Alto. Rancho Palo Alto was the smallest of the six ranchos. The property included the Coyote Hills and most of the Arroyo de los Coyotes, now called Coyote Creek, and in 1889 it became the boundary between Los Angeles and Orange Counties.

[edit] Historic sites

The Rancho Los Cerritos adobe is still in use at the Virginia Country Club in Long Beach, and the Rancho Los Alamitos adobe is just a few blocks east of the campus of California State University, Long Beach.