The Romance of the Ranchos :: Rancho San Vicente y Santa Monica
Most of the development on the ranchos of Southern California has just happened—they, like Topsy, just grew. But not so the Rancho San Vicente y Santa Monica. A careful plan, expenditure of great wealth and a determination of purpose unequaled all sought to make a great seaport of Santa Monica—and no city could have grown more contrary to the efforts to guide it than has Santa Monica.

The rancho was granted December 20th, 1839, by Governor Juan B. Alvarado to Francisco Sepulveda, officer of the Mexican army, and comprised 31,000 acres of mountain, mesa and ocean shore land. In the following thirty-three years many changes came over California. The rule of the United States supplanted the ruin of Mexico, California became a state and Los Angeles a city. The wool of the lazy sheep became more profitable than the hides of cattle.

In 1872 the heirs of Sepulveda, anxious to divide their inheritance and believing that Rancho San Vicente y Santa Monica had reached the peak of its value, sold the same for less than $2.00 an acre to Colonel Robert S. Baker, prominent wool grower of Kern County. Colonel Baker stocked the rancho with herds of sheep and shortly thereafter sold an undivided three-fourths interest in his property to Senator John P. Jones of Nevada. Jones and Baker then conceived the plan of a great harbor at Santa Monica and a harbor city on the rancho; the fortunes of both these men were thrown into the project and Santa Monica was platted.

The Los Angeles & Independence Railroad with its terminus at the new city and running to Los Angeles was built and operated. It had been planned to extend the railroad into the mining district of Inyo County and part of its name was derived from Independence, the county seat of Inyo County. However, the line was never built beyond Los Angeles. In connection with the railroad a large warehouse was built in Los Angeles, and a long wharf at Santa Monica. Every preparation was made for giant ships of the sea—ships which were never to come.

In 1886 the land boom which descended on Los Angeles and vicinity found Santa Monica well prepared to receive it. Colonel Baker and Senator Jones had hundreds of unsold lots and those previously sold when the harbor city was budding were ready for resale. The Arcadia Hotel, a handsome tourist resort located on the bluff, was built by Colonel Baker and named for his wife, Arcadia Bandini de Baker, who formerly had been Mrs. Abel Stearns. Mrs. de Baker, child of an illustrious Spanish family, was famed for her beauty, and, as wife of Don Abel Stearns, commanded an outstanding social position in Los Angeles. Upon Don Abel’s death she inherited all of his ranchos. Shortly after the boom the Estate of Colonel Baker, Senator Jones and the Santa Monica Land & Water Company conveyed 300 acres of land along the east boundary of the rancho to the United States and on this and adjoining land the Soldiers’ Home was built.

Then another effort was made to create a harbor at Santa Monica—this time led by Collis P. Huntington with the wealth of the Southern Pacific Railroad behind him. This last great attempt was given up only when threshed out on the floor of the United States Senate and the United States had decided that the Harbor should be at San Pedro. Perhaps it was the guiding hand of destiny that kept Santa Monica unspoiled as a residence city.