The Weekly Newspaper of Manhattan Beach Herald Publications - El Segundo, Manhattan Beach, Hawthorne, Lawndale, & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - Circulation 30,000 - Readership 60,000 (310) 322-1830 Vol. 9, No. 4 April 2, 2015 Inside This Issue Certified and Licensed Professionals...................6 Classifieds............................2 Film Review..........................2 Food.......................................5 Looking Up...........................2 Pets................................6 & 7 Politically Speaking............4 Weekend Forecast Friday, April 3 Sunny 78˚/58˚ Saturday, April 4 Sunny 74˚/54˚ Sunday, April 5 Sunny 66˚/52˚ Spring Break Washes Ashore Next Week A view of the pier from the south side. Manhattan Beach USD spring break starts next week, April 6. The Roundhouse Aquarium, located at the end of the pier and open M-F 2-5 and Saturday 10-sunset, is a great place to take kids (roundhouseaquarium.org). Photo by Peter Thornton, jp.thornton58@gmail.com. History in our Backyard: Rancho Los Cerritos and The Rancho Los Nietos Land Grant By Rick Foster In a continued effort to search and introduce my family and friends to California’s rich and dramatic history, today we visited a very prominent adobe home and museum right in our backyard, Rancho Los Cerritos. Located in Long Beach, we found ourselves in the luxurious surroundings of the Virginia Country Club and the historically unique and restored two-story adobe home that was built and occupied by the John Temple family in 1844. The property had once belonged to the first owner, Maria Manuela Nieto-Cota, and her family, who had built two smaller adobe structures on the property that no longer exist. The property was a part of the Nieto and Cota family from 1784-1844. Besides being one of the nicer restored adobe homes, Los Cerritos also houses an extensive archival book collection available to the public by appointment only, covering this historical time period. While at Rancho Los Cerritos we decided to learn more about Manuela Nieto-Cota and how she came to own a rancho. During our search for this information, we were surprised to learn that not only was California a Spanish speaking territory ruled by Spain, but California almost became part of Russia only to be saved by the California Mission System. We continued to follow the Nieto family story and how they fit into our local California history. We discovered that Maria Manuela Nieto had inherited the land from her father, Manuel Nieto, as part of a larger rancho known as Rancho Los Nietos. Rancho Los Nietos was a vast 167,000 acre rancho and Rancho Los Cerritos was just a small portion of 27,000 acres that includes Cerritos and Long Beach. A Spanish land grant was made in 1784 called Rancho Los Nietos. From this point, the story took on a life of its’ own with many twists and turns, as we uncovered more about the rancho and land grants of Spain and Mexico. We were intrigued by the size of this land grant. It had encompassed all the land that is now Anaheim, Artesia, Buena Park, Bolsa Chica, Cerritos, Cypress, Downey, Fullerton, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, Lakewood, Long Beach, Los Alamitos, Naples, Norwalk, Santa Fe Springs, Seal Beach, Sunset Beach and Whittier. From 1542–1769 Alta California, New Spain was virtually uninhabited by the non-natives. In the North, there were small groups of French and Russian fur hunters while in the South, only native Indians inhabited the area. Although rumors had been swirling for years that Tsarist Russia wanting to occupy parts of Alta California to enhance its fur trade operations, but it wasn’t until 1769 that Spain was prompted to implement a viable plan to settle the Alta California territory. In an effort to thwart Russia’s plan of invasion, Spain teamed up with the Roman Catholic Church and used the Franciscan friars to help settle the territory and push back the Russian settlers that were arriving from Alaska. The plan was to set up a chain of mission churches from San Diego to the Northern Territory. The mission systems would not only be for a place of worship, but doubled as fortresses and self-sustaining communities. The priests would convert the native population into Christians, as well as cultivate the land for the new colonies, thus growing a population of loyal Spanish subjects. As part of this scheme, Spanish soldiers joined the expedition to provide protection while the missions were being built. Armed with this historical background of what a desolate place California must have been and how important it was for Spain to populate the territory, we uncovered a story of a man named Sergeant Jose Manuel Perez- Nieto. Manuel Nieto was a Spanish soldier sent to San Diego to the newly built Presidio to help protect California from pirates, Indians and foreign invaders and to provide protection for the mission builders. In 1769, Junipero Serra, a Franciscan friar, set out to build a string of missions and forts from Baja to the North of the state. The effort was successful in that the Russian colonies never made it past present day Sonoma. To further the colonization of Alta California, many Spanish soldiers were enlisted to patrol and protect the mission settlements from invasions and hostile Indians. They were also encouraged to settle in the area of the missions with their families to help populate the territory. During this time, Spain was becoming increasingly strapped for cash. In order to offset the low to nonexistent salaries for these soldiers, they were granted permission to raise cattle for food, as well as, supplement their income. One such soldier in this trade was Sergeant Jose Manuel Perez-Nieto. As Nieto’s cattle numbers grew, so did the need for pastures for his cows to graze. In 1784, Nieto sent a request for land to the acting governor of Alta California for his cattle to graze. Spain had only issued 30 land grants during its occupation of California and Manuel Nieto and three other soldiers were offered one of these land grants. Rancho Los Nietos was born out of this land grant. Rancho Los Nieto was one of the first and largest of the California land grants; the initial grant consisted of 300,000 acres, but after some protest from priests at the Mission San Gabriel, the grant was cut to 167,000 acres. Mission San Gabriel needed the land to sustain the local Tongva Indians that had lived throughout Los Angeles area and the West Side. Mission San Gabriel had been persuading the Tongva tribes to leave their nearby land and come live on mission lands. The remaining 167,000 acres given to Manuel Nieto, stretched from the hills north See History, page 4
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