Rancho Santa Rita was a 8894acres Mexican land grant in the Amador Valley and western Livermore Valley, which is in present day Alameda County, California.
It was given in 1839 by Governor Juan Alvarado to Jose Dolores Pacheco.[1]
The rancho included present day Pleasanton, Asco, and Dougherty.[2] [3]
Rancho Santa Rita was granted in 1839 to Pueblo de San José alcalde Jose Dolores Pacheco. It extended east from present day Foothill Road, with the Rancho Las Positas adjacent in the eastern Livermore Valley, Rancho San Ramon on the north and the Rancho Valle de San Jose on the south, Pacheco was an absentee landowner, but had a small adobe built in 1844, which is no longer standing. In 1854, Francisco Alviso, the son of Pacheco's majordomo (ranch manager), Francisco Solano Alviso, built the adobe ranch house that still stands on Foothill Road in the Alviso Adobe Community Park overlooking Amador Valley.
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 Santa Rita was filed with the Public Land Commission in 1852,[4] [5] and the grant was patented to John Yountz, administrator of the estate of José Dolores Pacheco in 1865.[6] [7]
In 1853, Rancho Santa Rita was sold to Augustin Alviso, grantee of Rancho Potrero de los Cerritos, by the heirs of Jose Delores Pacheco, Juana Pacheco and Salvio Pacheco.[8] In 1854, Samuel B. Martin and West J. Martin purchased Rancho Santa Rita. They sold the ranch in 1865, and moved to Oakland.[9]
In 1865 William M. Mendenhall came to the valley, and in 1868 purchased 650acres of the Rancho Santa Rita grant. During the period of the railroad boom in the late 1860s, Rancho Santa Rita was sub divided into fifteen farms. The farms were "small" tracts of about 300acres to 3750acres. The larger land owners consisted of J.W. Dougherty, 750acres; Abdijah Baker, 2078acres; and William Knox, 360acres.
In 1869 J.W. Kottinger and J.A. Neal each laid out and plotted a subdivision for a new town called Alisal, situated about five miles south of Dublin. By 1878 the village was an unincorporated town of about 500 people, later renamed Pleasanton. Like Livermore, Pleasanton attained its size and importance with coming of the Union Pacific Railroad.
In the early 1880s, Count Valensin purchased 140acres, Maas Suders purchased a strip of land from the Mendenhall's 650acres, and Samuel Hewlett purchased 1600acres. In 1894 the remainder of Rancho Santa Rita was offered for sale by Lagrance and Company of Oakland.
In 1921 what was left of the Mexican grant was sold to Asa Mendenhall.[10] [11]