Rancho de Los Feliz was a 6647acres Spanish land concession in present-day Los Angeles County, California purportedly given in 1795 by Spanish Governor Pedro Fages to José Vicente Feliz, although there is no deed or other record. The land of the grant includes Los Feliz and Griffith Park, and was bounded on the east by the Los Angeles River.[1]
Given to Jose Vicente Feliz, this was one of the first land grants made in California. Born in Sonora, Mexico, about 1741, Corporal Feliz, a veteran of the Anza Expedition of 1776, was the Spanish military leader at the Pueblo of Los Angeles.[2] In 1787 Governor Fages appointed Feliz as Comisionado of the Los Angeles Pueblo, giving him the powers of Mayor and Judge. Some sources say that, for his service, Feliz was granted Rancho Los Feliz. H. H. Bancroft, in his History of California, doubted any governor granted the rancho to Vicente Féliz.[3]
Mexican Governor Manuel Micheltorena granted the rancho to María Ygnacia Verdugo.[4] María Ygnacia Verdugo was the wife of one of the sons of Anastacio María Feliz. Anastacio was probably a cousin of José Vicente Feliz. When María's husband died, she petitioned for a grant in her name and in the name of her son José Antonio Feliz. Governor Micheltorena granted it to her in 1843. She did not remarry.
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 Los Feliz was filed with the Public Land Commission in 1852,[5] [6] and the grant was patented to María Ygnacia Verdugo (written "M.Y. Berdugo")in 1871.[7]
María Ygnacía Verdugo deeded some of the rancho to her daughters in 1853.
In 1863, the executor of Antonio Féliz's estate -- Antonio F. Coronel -- acquired ownership of what remained of Rancho de Los Feliz from the heirs of María Ygnacia Verdugo. Cyrus Lyon sold the land on the former rancho the city gave to him in the 1850s as "donation lots" to San Francisco real estate developer James Lick. The city's claim to this area was based on its grant of "four-leagues square."
In 1882, Colonel Griffith Jenkins Griffith acquired 4071acres of Rancho Los Feliz. Colonel Griffith donated to the city of Los Angeles 3015acres (nearly half of the original rancho), which became Griffith Park, one of the largest city-owned parks in the country. At the time, the Lick estate still owned the southwest portion of the rancho, and there developed the Lick Tract, which later became a part of Hollywood.