La Sierras history starts as Mexican land grant
Nita Hiltner Special To The Press-Enterprise Kurt Snibbe
La Sierra is a quiet neighborhood of Riverside, but it started out as a 17,774 acre land grant in 1846 by Mexican Gov. Pio Pico to Vicenta Sepulveda. It was called La Sierra de Santa Ana (the mountains of Santa Ana). At that time, the grant also included the area today known as Norco and […]
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Press Enterprise
La Sierra is a quiet neighborhood of Riverside, but it started

out as a 17,774 acre land grant in 1846 by Mexican Gov. Pio Pico to

Vicenta Sepulveda. It was called La Sierra de Santa Ana (the

mountains of Santa Ana). At that time, the grant also included the

area today known as Norco and the west end of Riverside.

The land was sought by both Maria Vicenta Sepulveda, daughter of

Francisco Sepulveda, who owned the Rancho San Vicente y Santa

Monica land grant, and Bernardo Yorba, brother of her late husband,

Tomas Antonio Yorba, son of Jose Antonio Yorba, the grantee of

Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana in what is today Orange County. The

brothers used the land in La Sierra as pasture, but Bernardo

applied for it when his brother died and claimed interest in the

land had dated from 1825. Pio Pico granted the east half of the

land (La Sierra) to the widow and the west half to Bernardo

Yorba.

Abel Stearns, one-time mayor of Los Angeles, who married Arcadia

Bandini when she was 14, bought the Rancho La Sierra but sold it

after an 1863 drought. An interesting note is that Arcadia

remarried to the namesake of Bakersfield, Robert S. Baker, when

Stearns died. Other entities then owned it, including the San

Jacinto Land Company, before James W. Long bought it in 1908. He

began developing the area in 1910 and formed the Orange Heights

Water Company to do so.

Los Angeles businessman Willitts J. Hole bought most of the

rancho and developed the Hole Ranch, building a large mansion

designed by Arthur Benton, that is today used as a Catholic

seminary. In 1921, the North Corona Land Company, a subdivision of

the Corona Land Company, bought some of the land to grow citrus.

This land became Norco, an abbreviation of the North Corona Land

Company name.

In 1922, Hole sold 400 acres to the Seventh-day Adventist

Church, and in 1942, he sold over 1,200 acres to the U.S. Army to

build Camp Anza. Riverside annexed what was left of the rancho land

in 1964.

Hole was a real estate developer throughout Southern California

and was known as the father of the city of La Habra. He was born in

Indiana and came to California for his wife’s health concerns. He

bought land in the La Habra Valley and sold the land that would

become La Habra. In 1897, he became a selling agent for the Stearns

Rancho Company of San Francisco, which owned the Rancho La Sierra.

Hole obtained the land by foreclosure.

Hole went on to have a boat built, the Samona. The Craig

Shipbuilding Company built a steel-hulled, long-range cruiser known

as the Samona II, bought by the U.S. Navy in 1940 and commissioned

the USS Amethyst. Hole was buried in Evergreen Cemetery in

Riverside.

Riverside County historian Steve Lech said the history of La

Sierra wasn’t documented well, but there are reports and books on

Five Points, Willets Hole, the Hole Ranch and Camp Anza.

La Sierra is home to La Sierra University and the new Riverwalk

Community.

Reach Nita Hiltner: nhiltner1@sbcglobal.net