Rancho San Antonio is a 29513acres Spanish land grant in present-day Los Angeles County, California that was granted to Antonio Maria Lugo. The rancho included in some part the present-day cities of Bell, Bell Gardens, Maywood, Vernon, Huntington Park, Walnut Park, Cudahy, South Gate, Lynwood, Montebello and Commerce.[1] [2]
Corporal Antonio Maria Lugo, after seventeen years of military service, received his discharge and was granted the Spanish concession Rancho San Antonio in 1810. The grant was confirmed in 1838 to Antonio Maria Lugo by Mexican Governor Juan B. Alvarado.[3] On Rancho San Antonio he built Casa de Rancho San Antonio the oldest home in Los Angeles County, California.[4] 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 was filed with the Public Land Commission in 1852,[5] [6] and the grant was patented to Antonio Lugo in 1866.[7]
In 1855 Antonio Maria Lugo, partitioned the Rancho—reserving a homestead for himself—among his sons, José Maria, Felipe, Jose del Carmen, Vicente and José Antonio, and his daughters, Vicenta Perez, Maria Antonia Yorba, and Merced Foster. In 1860 Merced Foster and Vicente Lugo sold their respective portions to parties who immediately resorted to subdivision and sale in small lots. The first deed is from Isaac Heiman to David Ward, dated June 21, 1865; followed by other sales in 1865 and 1866.
In 1908 Michael Cudahy acquired the remaining 2,800 acre (11 km2) Rancho San Antonio. He subdivided the ranch and sold it as one acre (4,000 m2) lots. This area was incorporated in 1960 as the City of Cudahy.