Don Francisco Pérez Pacheco's son, Juan Carlos Pacheco, was granted Rancho San Luis Gonzaga in 1843. Following Juan's death in 1855, Francisco inherited his son's rancho.
A grant was first made in 1841 to Francisco Jose Rivera of Monterey, but he returned to Mexico soon after and did not occupy the grant. The eleven square league grant was made to Juan Carlos Pacheco and José Maria Mejía in 1843.[3] Three days later, Captain Mejia gave his half of the grant to Pacheco. Juan Perez Pacheco (1823–1855) was the son of Francisco Pérez Pacheco (1790–1860), grantee of Rancho Ausaymas y San Felipe.[4] The rancho lay at a great crossroad where the road from Pacheco Pass into the San Joaquin Valley crossed the El Camino Viejo that lay along the west side of the valley. Its lands included the land and adobe ranch house of the old Spanish Rancho de Centinela (Sentinel Ranch) first established by pioneering stockmen from San Juan Bautista and Monterey as place to raise horses in 1810 and subsequently abandoned in the 1820s.
When Juan Carlos Pacheco died in 1855, the property went to his father, Francisco Pacheco. In 1858, the rancho became a stage station for the Butterfield Overland Mail.
Upon Francisco Pacheco's death in 1860, his only surviving child, Isidora Pacheco (1829–1892) inherited most of the Pacheco holdings. In 1850, Ysidora married Mariano Malarin (1827–1895) of Rancho Chualar.[8] When María Isidora Pacheco died in 1892, her estate consisted of Rancho San Luis Gonzaga and half of Rancho Ausaymas y San Felipe.[9]
Paula Fatjó, a great granddaughter of Ysidora and Mariano Malarin, inherited 16,000 acres (64.7 km2) of the ranch land in 1948, and used it to raise horses and cattle. The majority of her property was condemned by the state of California in 1962 to create the San Luis Reservoir, and the original 1846 ranch house, which she had restored, was destroyed in an attempt to move it away from the area flooded by the new lake. Fatjó died on December 30, 1992, leaving the remaining 6,890 acres (27.9 km2) to the California Parks System, where it forms what is now Pacheco State Park.[10]
^Ogden Hoffman, 1862, Reports of Land Cases Determined in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, Numa Hubert, San Francisco
Fort Tejon – Located 15 miles southwest of Sink of Tejon Station, north of and below the summit of Tejon Pass.
Reed's Station – Located 8 miles southeast of Fort Tejon, near, to the south of the summit of the Tejon Pass.
French John's Station – Located 14 miles east southeast of Reeds Station, in the vicinity of the mouth of Cow Springs Creek Canyon.
Mud Spring, a later station operating in 1860, 14 miles east from French Johns and 13 miles north from Clayton's Station (formerly Widow Smith's Station). [1]
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