Rancho Las Virgenes

History

Rancho Las Virgenes, or El Rancho de Nuestra Senora La Reina de Las Virgenes as it was first called, was granted to Miguel Ortega in 1802. It was later owned by Jose Maria Dominguez. Ownership eventually passed to Maria Antonia Machado whose son, Jose Paulino Reyes, built the Reyes Adobe.

Rancho Las Virgenes Land Grant

From Disenos of California ranchos; maps of thirty-seven land grants; 1822-1846, from the records of the United States District Court, San Francisco by Robert H. Becker. San Francisco: San Francisco Book Club, 1964.

Map Number 35. Los Angeles County

"RANCO LAS VIRGENES. In the latter part of 1833, Domingo Carrillo and Nemesio Dominguez, of Santa Barbara and Los Angeles respectively, submitted a petition to Governor Figueroa for a tract of land twelve leagues west of Los Angeles, known as Las Virgenes, accompanying the petition with a diseño which described the location and boundaries of the rancho.

"In 1837, having received the approval of the government, the two men requested official possession of the rancho. Alcalde Francisco Alvarado complied, employing Abel Stearn’s as surveyor.

"Stearn’s diseño, drawn at the time of the petition in 1833, shows a tract bisected by the highway, adjoining Rancho Conejo to the west and Mission San Fernando to the east, having four sides. His survey notes, contained in the record of the act of possession, show a much more irregular boundary than he had indicated in the diseño.

"A comparison of the diseño with a modern topographical map clearly shows that Stearn’s knowledge of that particular terrain was quite superficial at the time he made the drawing, which could serve only approximately to locate and define the rancho.

"Rancho Las Virgenes is in the extreme west of Los Angeles County. The “Camino” of the diseño is now the Ventura freeway, a few miles east of the community of Thousand Oaks .

"Copies of the diseño are to be found in the District Court cases, map D1298; in the National Archives, expediente 54; in the State Archives, expediente 54, and in the Board of Land Commissioners, no. 508."

Maps and Diagrams

1. Diseño del Rancho Las Virgenes

This map is the most detailed.

2. Diseño del Rancho Las Virgenes

3. Diseño del Parage Llamado Las Virgenes

4. Dise ñ o del Rancho Las Virgenes

See the first five maps on this page.