#rancho-history

#rancho-history

When California became a state in 1850, officials signed 18 treaties setting aside millions of acres for tribal reservations. Congress killed the deals in secret after pressure from state leaders. Many tribes had already moved, trusting the promises. Now California wants to make good.

As a SoCal resident, I visit Anza-Borrego at least once a year to explore the sandstone Slot canyon and surrounding desert, keeping an eye out for animals like chuckwalla lizards and bighorn sheep. Despite its incredibly dry environment (the park averages just four to eight inches of rain a year, and summertime temps routinely hit the hundreds), Anza-Borrego teems with life and opportunities to explore one of the nation's most unique ecosystems.

Boyle Heights was at the core of Jewish life in Los Angeles during the late 1800s and early 1900s, and the Fairfax District could claim that title until the 1980s. But the spiritual heartland of the Jewish community is now in Pico-Robertson.

During the open community day, Connolly Ranch welcomes old friends to visit and new friends to discover the ranch for the first time. Once a month, the ranch will be open for the public to visit the garden, relax in the grove, take a hike on the woodland trail and see the animals-on your own, or bring your family and friends.

They thought he would be too busy and too famous to consider building in Bakersfield. They were wrong. Wright responded to their inquiry and after much correspondence and a few meetings, agreed to the commission, one of his last. He designed the house in 1958 and died the next year at age 91.

The house was originally a ranch hand and foreman's quarters. It is now California ranch in style with hand-carved woodwork reminiscent of Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. A wine cellar was built in what was the root cellar, and a 200-year-old church door was added.

Welcome to Shangri-La-Dee-Da. This aptly named 58-acre estate offers its future owners a real shot at reinvention. They could become stewards of (a rather large chunk of) the Earth; they could raise, ride and train horses. Maybe they'll decide to grow grapes and make their own wine. Or, they can become event planners or hosts, offering our one-of-a-kind location for celebrations. Conceivably, they could do all of these things at 3970 Leavesley Road in Gilroy - that's the magic of the Shangi-La-Dee-Da.

Formal groundbreaking for the Ahmanson Ranch project, a town-style development on 2,800 acres in the Simi Hills in southeastern Ventura County, will not take place until 2001. However, the project has already achieved historic status for the size of the private-to-public land transfer it produced and for reviving a design concept that marks a major departure from the car-dependent suburban enclave typical of the postwar era.

Abraham Lincoln first earned national attention by calling out President James K. Polk's lies about the lead-up to the conflict, which lasted from April 1846 to February 1848, on the floor of Congress. Ulysses S. Grant called the war "one of the most unjust ever waged." Henry David Thoreau's famous essay "Resistance to Civil Government" was written partly in response to the Mexican-American War, which he decried as "the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool." Other American paragons of virtue who were publicly opposed at the time: William Lloyd Garrison, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Frederick Douglass.

Despite being on the periphery of the Spanish empire and Mexico before becoming part of the United States, California had an important place in the larger struggle by enslaved people for their freedom. California connects Mexican and U.S. history while also serving as a reminder that there are few corners of the Western Hemisphere that are untouched by the legacy of slavery.

Alemán, originally from Cabo San Lucas, has toured most of South America, bringing his Spanish-language rap to millions of fans. According to Spotify, Alemán is 2026's most popular Mexican rapper. Gera MX, originally started by freestyling on the streets of San Luis Potosí and then joined the collective, the Mexamafia. But it was his co-penned "Botella Tras Botella" that was the first Mexican single to break into the US Billboard Top 100.

With their red-tile roofs and stucco walls so commonplace that they've become part of the landscape, the homes of the Spanish Colonial Revival tapped the climate, local materials and an idealized view of history to become the signature style of Southern California.

A group of ranches and dairies in the Point Reyes National Seashore has about two months left to close down under an agreement with the Nature Conservancy. The federal park announced on Jan. 8, 2025, that six dairies and six beef ranches operating there would cease operations within 15 months following a confidential legal settlement with environmental organizations that had long sought to ban agricultural uses of the park.

Last August, on a hurried stretch of East 18th Street in Antioch, 20 acres of ancient grapevines seemed to vanish overnight. Once part of the historic Evangelho Vineyard, the parcel was sold off in the 1950s, changing hands several times before Rockefeller Construction acquired it last year. Morgan Twain-Peterson of Sonoma's Bedrock Wine Co. was crushed, but not surprised. In Contra Costa County, where rows of centuries-old grapevines are often sandwiched between gas stations and convenience stores, the sense of impending loss is palpable.

We're obviously not reinventing the wheel in our master plan for EastLake. We've learned what to do and what not to from our experience at Irvine and from looking at features in other master-planned communities, and we hope it will show at EastLake.

Loving County, in northwest Texas, may have the highest trouble-to-resident ratio in the United States. With sixty-four inhabitants, as of the 2020 census, the county is the least populated in the country. Control of its top elected positions-sheriff, judge, constable, county clerk-can be swung by a handful of votes. Many of those vying for power are related to, and estranged from, their opponents. Election results are regularly challenged by the losing candidate, sometimes repeatedly;

Enrique Castillejos and his wife stopped at a Winchell's Donut House. It was part of their after-church routine on Friday nights. That evening's sermon had been about finding peace in God in turbulent times, and they felt it spoke directly to them. Enrique, 63, and his wife, Maria Elena Hernandez, 55, were undocumented immigrants. Like millions of others in Southern California, they had been looking over their shoulders as federal agents conducted immigration sweeps.

Situated on the southern border of Orange County and easily accessible to travelers by Amtrak train or car, San Clemente has all the charm of a close-knit community and all the liveliness of a surfer's paradise. Plus, it's one of the most beautiful towns in the area, with the rolling San Joaquin Hills on one side and the Pacific Ocean on the other.

I may be a bit biased, but I consider the California coastline to be the most scenic and diverse route in the U.S. As a native to the state, I've taken more than 20 road trips over the years, traversing desert terrain, budding vineyards, and cliff-hugging highways that tower above the Pacific Ocean. And though I love the colossal redwood forests in northern California and the gleaming coastline that cradles the state's southern end, there's one road trip I always return to for its access to some of the state's best wineries, restaurants, and charismatic hotels.