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Famous Ranches and Stations

Rancho Los Alamitos: From Tongva Village to a Great California Cattle Ranch

Abel Stearns's cattle made this rancho the headquarters of the largest cattle ranch in the United States in the early 1850s, according to one account.

What is Rancho Los Alamitos?

Rancho Los Alamitos is a historic rancho and adobe residence in Long Beach, California. The Wikipedia article says the name comes from an 1834 Mexican partition of the earlier Rancho Los Nietos, one of the first Spanish land grants in Alta California. It once covered over 28,000 acres.

Los Alamitos means the little cottonwoods, for the native trees that grew there. Today the restored adobe, gardens and barns work as a public museum on the region's long history.

Who lived here before the ranchos?

The site was home to the Tongva village of Povuu'nga, described as a major ceremonial and trade center inhabited from at least 500 CE until the late 1700s. It sat in the floodplain of the Los Angeles, San Gabriel and Santa Ana Rivers, with fertile soil and reliable springs on Alamitos Mesa.

Spanish governor Pedro Fages awarded the 1784 Rancho Los Nietos concession to Manuel Nieto. After Nieto's death his heirs asked for subdivision, and Governor Jose Figueroa granted Los Alamitos as a separate estate in 1834.

How old is the adobe ranch house?

According to the rancho's house history page, the house began around 1804 as a simple four-room adobe with a reed roof, sheltering vaqueros and livestock on an outlying area of one of Manuel Nieto's ranches. Nieto and his heir Juan Jose needed the building to establish legal occupancy and house laborers on a remote coastal stretch.

Abel Stearns and his wife Arcadia Bandini, the first owners to live there regularly, added wood floors, a gabled roof, new walls and a bunkhouse wing for vaqueros. The Bixby family later added rooms, a second story, a children's wing, plumbing and electricity.

Abel Stearns and the cattle boom

In 1844 Abel Stearns, a Massachusetts-born merchant who married Arcadia Bandini, acquired the rancho. He raised vast herds that supplied beef during the California Gold Rush, and by the early 1850s Wikipedia says Los Alamitos was the headquarters of the largest cattle ranch in the United States. That claim is reported, not proven by the sources opened here.

As the rancho entry on Wikipedia explains, Stearns won legal title through the Land Act of 1851 and a federal land patent in 1874. Drought in the 1860s forced him to lease the land and eventually lose control of it.

The Key to Los Alamitos's Survival

Los Alamitos outlasted several economies because each set of owners adapted the same land to a new use, and because the last family chose to give the core to the public.

The record also shows how drought, debt and changing law moved the land from one owner to the next.

  • Occupy the land: the adobe was built so that the Nieto family could establish legal occupancy and house laborers.
  • Sell to a booming market: Stearns's herds supplied beef during the Gold Rush.
  • Secure legal title: Stearns won title under the Land Act of 1851 and received a federal patent in 1874.
  • Adapt after drought: the 1860s drought broke Stearns's hold, and later owners tried sugar beets and found oil.
  • Give the core to the public: the Bixby family donated the house, barns and gardens to Long Beach, and the family gave the original furnishings.

How did the Bixbys change the ranch?

In the 1880s John William Bixby and his cousins Jotham and Llewellyn Bixby, with banker Isaias W. Hellman, bought the rancho for $141,000. John Bixby began developing the Alamitos Beach tract and died suddenly in 1888, which led to a partition of the estate. The rancho's own history page says the Bixby family lived in the house from 1878 to 1961, so the date of the family's arrival differs by source.

The Bixbys experimented with sugar beets, working with industrialist William Andrews Clark on a refinery, and the later discovery of the Long Beach Oil Field brought new wealth to the lands.

Visit Rancho Los Alamitos

Fred Bixby donated the core historic property to the City of Long Beach in 1967, per Wikipedia, while the rancho's page gives 1968. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1981. The house is open to the public year round, with interiors reflecting 1920 to 1945.

The grounds include gardens designed by Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. and by Florence Yoch and Lucile Council, plus Moreton Bay fig trees designated as horticultural landmarks. For more on California ranch history, see the ranching section of farm.FM or read a story about early California cattle ranching.

Timeline

  1. 1784Rancho Los Nietos concession awarded to Manuel Nieto
  2. 1804Approximate start of the four-room adobe, per the rancho
  3. 1834Governor Figueroa grants Los Alamitos as a separate estate
  4. 1844Abel Stearns acquires the rancho
  5. 1851Land Act of 1851 sets up Stearns's claim to legal title
  6. 1880sBixby cousins and Isaias Hellman buy the rancho for $141,000
  7. 1967Fred Bixby donates the historic core to Long Beach, per Wikipedia; another source says 1968
  8. 1981Added to the National Register of Historic Places

Frequently asked questions

What is Rancho Los Alamitos?

A historic rancho and adobe ranch house in Long Beach, California, now a museum with barns and gardens, that once covered over 28,000 acres under Spanish, Mexican and American owners.

Who was Abel Stearns?

A Massachusetts-born merchant who married Arcadia Bandini, acquired Los Alamitos in 1844 and raised cattle for the Gold Rush beef market before drought in the 1860s ended his control.

Does Rancho Los Alamitos still have cattle?

No. It is a public museum interpreting Tongva, Spanish, Mexican and American ranching history, with restored barns and gardens, not a working cattle ranch.

When did the Bixby family own the rancho?

Wikipedia says the Bixby cousins bought it in the 1880s, while the rancho's page says the family lived in the house from 1878 to 1961. Sources differ.

Sources and further reading

Profiles are compiled from public sources and reviewed against them. See our editorial policy to suggest a correction.

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