“Tanforan cottages, you have met your match. Mission Loc@l reports on the discovery what is perhaps the oldest house in San Francisco at 1266 Hampshire (between 24th and 25th), dating to 1849. It has been traced to the brothers John and George Treat, whence the street name came.
“The house on Hampshire, historians said, was likely built in 1849 — the year a pair of influential pioneer brothers arrived in San Francisco — or 1850.” It was identified during the city’s South Mission Historic Resources survey. Gregory Thomas of Mission Loc@l does a fine job referencing maps, but he makes the rookie mistake of stopping with the 1861 Langley map in the search for Treat. But going back to the 1859 US Coast Survey map, we can see the Treat compound at its original wonky angle, next to their Pioneer Race Course.”
Then, there is a house in Emeryville where horse racing found a home, also.
“He and his wife Lavinia assembled a small house, which may have been shipped around Cape Horn, farmed the land, and raised pigs and cattle.”
In 1994, a few months after the death of my sister, Christine Rosamond Benton, I went to the Sacramento Library and in the California History room, I began to research the history of my family. Rosemary had recently told me that William Stuttmeister and his brother-in-law, William Breyer had built over forty homes in the Fruit Vale area of Oakland that was a city at one time. We owned a farm and orchard in the foothills below Joaquin Miller’s house. Miller would come visit the Stuttmeisters and carry my father on his lap as he and Melba rode the trolley.
Going into the microfish I found an article from the San Francisco Call bulletin that said William had married Augustus the daughter of Carl Janke and lived in the city of Belmont California. I then looked for Carl Janke in the catalogue and found an entry in the history of the Daughters of the American Revolution, a encyclopedia of around four books. It said Carl brought six portable houses around the cape and erected them in the city of Belmont that was not incorporated until 1926. About ten years ago I read that one of the Tanforan cottages was moved from Belmont, they on a Spanish land grant that came to be owned by Toribio Tanforan, the grandson-in-law of Jose Antonio Sanchez.
No one can find any history of Toribio. Why then is being honored? Jose Sanchez is very famous in regards to Spanish land grants. There is no Tansforan land grant. One historian says Toribo was a gaucho from Chile, and thus he was a excellent horseman. And, that’s it! This is what conects the mysterious Torribo to the Tanforan race track and Belmont. Give me a break! Why are two houses in San Francisco named Tanforan?
I suspect Tanforan was the name of the German theme park that Charles Janke built in Belmont, it said he modeling it after a German way of life. Tanforan is not a Spanish name. It also resembles Turnverien, who were Forty-Eighters who fled Europe in the ‘Erupecan Spring’. Consider the ‘Arab Spring’ no doubt named after the revolutions that swept Europe, including Italy, that bid Count Leonetto Cipriani to leave his home in Belmont and pretty much rule the United Italy under Garibaldi and Victor Emanuel. Why wasn’t Ciprianis name applied to a race track? I did find a ‘Cipriani Dog Park’.
In his Overland Diaries Cipriani discuss his prefab house that was out together by screws. This is the famous house in Belmont, called ‘Ralston Hall’. Across the bay in emryville Mr. Coggeshall and his wife have screwed together their new home that was shipped around the cape in 1849. Is this yet another of six portable houses brought around the Cape by my kindred, Carl Janke? San Francisco realtors are selling land in Emeryville. What we are looking at is the birth of California Real estate where track homes are built to arrack folks from back east. Did Cipriani invest in real estate? Who financed him if her did?
“The second sale that Vicente Peralta made was for the greater portion of his estate to a group of San Francisco investors for $100,000 in August 1853. These investors then sold off plots within the estate. Perhaps the first American to settle in what later became Emeryville was Frederick Coggeshall, a native of Massachusetts who came to San Francisco in 1849 and purchased a 45-acre tract on the San Pablo road near where 45th Street is today. He and his wife Lavinia assembled a small house, which may have been shipped around Cape Horn, farmed the land, and raised pigs and cattle.”
One so called historian says the Tanforan Cottages were built by ships carpenters from ships that were abandoned in the Gold Rush by 49ers, sailors who jumped ship to look for their gold mine, that were in want of experience carpenters, who were not paid much. One citations said portable houses were built on the east coast where labour was cheap thanks to the Irish immigration. As to the idea that the Tanforan cottages were moved from Belmont to the Mission, after the San Francisco, consider ‘The Vans’ a structure that was moved to Belmont from San Francisco.
“One of two surviving structures from the Panama-Pacific International Exposition is on Belmont Avenue (the other is the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco). The building was brought to Belmont by E.D. Swift shortly after the exposition closed in 1915. Swift owned a large amount of land in the area.”
The San Francisco exhibition was a giant them park like the one Janke built, called Belmont Park. The first theme park in San Francisco was right next door to the Tanforan cottages. The Treat house was located next door to a race course. It is said Janke brought his houses to the Bay Area to sell to 49ers that struck it rich, but, I put forth a theory that these homes were owned by race track owners who took many fortunes away from those who struck it rich. The cost of a house was nothing in comparison to participating in ‘The Sport of Kings’. There was no great city, but, a 49er could show off his wealth at the race track, he putting on the Ritz, smoking Cuban cigars, and losing a bundle with a girl under each arm. Elmer Big Bones Remmer understood what men want – and women! They don’t want a church-goer penny-pincher, not ‘Out West’ Consider Las Vegas and the real idea these portable homes were used as houses of ill repute. There was a real shortage of women in San Francisco that was wanting the oldest profession in human history to come to town.
The Stuttmeisters fled Germany as members of the Turnverien and lived in Chile. German Free-thinkers changed America, forever. During World War One the Windsors changed their German name Saxe-Coberg because of anti-German sentiment. I believe this name-change was forced upon Heinrich Alfred Kreiser Rengstorff, who once owned more land in America than anyone. The story of how he was named Henry Miller – is a fairytale! Hienrich (Henry) got his start in SF as a buthcer. Consider Cipranis’s cattle drive. Now consider the real possibility that the Emmet House that was moved to a new location in Belmont appears to have been added on to over the years like the Ralston house, but one can see it looks like one of the Tanforan cottages underneath. (top photo)
Someone has got to look at these homes to see if they were put together by screws. If so, then my kindred will go down in history as California first Real estate tycoons who bought land for next to nothing. However, men who could build a home were hard to find our west. The Janke prefab homes were bought and sold several times, then moved to a new property. This is the fate of the Emmett house this very day!
As for Belmont’s history, I find it very shoddy. It appears that some well-to-do and well-meaning citizens of a new Bay Area city (1926), went looking for their roots. They could not ignore the Jankes, or Cipriani who were foreign revolutionaries, even Socialists and Atheists. It was these men that founded the Republican party and nominated my kindred, John Fremont, as that parties first presidential candidate. These foreigners made up John and Jessi Benton’s bodyguard.
Belmont Park had contests of physical prowness, and marksmanship. So did the Turnverein gymists who held gatherings in San Francisco. It appears Janke lured them to Belmont. The idea that Belmont was acenter for German Revolutionaires, repulsed some Belmontese who were no doubt WASPs. Turnverein beccomes Tanforan, and Spanish.
One California Dreamer wanted the city of Benicia to be the state capitol. The first citizens lived in prefab houses purchased back east, that were dismantled, then brought around the Cape. Was there a prefab supplier in the Bay Area? There was a contest to see who could erect California’s Captiol.
Jon Presco
Copyright 2012
Given the radicalization of the movement in the 1840s, it is not surprising that the German gymnasts were directly involved in the 1848 revolutions. Turnverein leaders won renown for their leading roles in local uprisings, among them Gustav Struve in Baden, Otto Heubner in Dresden, and August Schärttner in Hanau. One Turnverein leaders who was not in the forefront of radical change was Turnvater Jahn. Elected as a representative to the Frankfurt Parliament, Jahn was given honor, but no real influence, in the revived gymnastic movement.
Although a proposal to form a “Gymnastic Army” (Turnerschar) to supplement the National Guard was never realized, gymnasts manned barricades and participated in crucial fighting during the revolutions. Early in the revolutionary period, the eighty-odd members of the Kiel Turnverein took arms against Denmark in the conflict over Schleswig-Holstein.
One of Belmont’s oldest and most historic homes has come a long way in 126 years. About three blocks, to be precise.
The former home of a prominent citizen, Belmont’s Emmett House was ripped off its foundation nearly three years ago and transplanted to a new location.
Now, after nearly $1 million in seismic and structural renovations, the house has been converted to two units, has had a two-car detached garage added, and is ready to begin a new life as low- to moderate- income housing. The city is in the final stages of choosing the residents, and will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony Saturday.
Though the 10-year ordeal of saving the historic home is near its end, the project didn’t come without controversy.
“We wanted to preserve it … plain and simple,” said Carlos de Melo, Belmont’s community development director, citing the house as one of the city’s more special historic landmarks.
De Melo said the house’s previous location at 843 Ralston Ave. began to see rapid development and was deemed to be no longer appropriate for a historic landmark. After a number of public hearings, the City Council voted to move the house to its new location at 1000 O’Neil Ave.
In a bizarre sight, the 126-year-old relic was lifted off its foundation and transported to an empty parking lot on the rainy night of Jan. 22, 2008. The house had to be moved via roadway at night to avoid traffic, said Belmont Mayor Coralin Feierbach.
When the home was relocated, however, some people in the vicinity of O’Neil Avenue objected to their new but run down neighbor. The house “didn’t look very good” and added to neighbor resentment of low- to moderate-income units in the area, Feierbach said.
expectation was that Benicia would become a metropolis of Northern California, situated as it was at the head of the ocean and being in a position to command the trade from the interior rivers and valleys.
Semple constructed a small scow and began ferry service between the north and south shores of the straits. Shortly after, he built a better ferry. He charged an extra 50 cents for ferrying wild horses, which had to be lashed down during passage and were difficult to offload. He started out making $115 a month. During the Gold Rush days he was making $50 a day. He was already printing the first newspaper in California, aptly named the Californian. He married Frances Cooper in 1847 in Benicia’s new hotel, California House, a large two-story adobe. The proprietor of the hotel was Maj. Cooper, the father of the bride. After his marriage, he went on to pursue his dream for Benicia. It was due in great part to Semple’s persistence, constant promotion and industrious nature that by 1850 Benicia was poised to challenge San Francisco as a major port.
Most new inhabitants, circa 1847, were from the New England states. These early settlers of Benicia were obliged to live in tents and wagons before several adobe and small frame houses were erected. But with lumber $300 to $600 per thousand board-feet, the fact that there were no lumber yards and that carpenter’s wages were high, the people of Benicia soon turned to prefab housing. They ordered their homes from back east. The houses were dismantled there and shipped in sections around the Horn. Time was also a factor. A house ordered in this manner would be in place within two years. A house constructed on site with hand tools would take around three years before it could be inhabited.
Tanforan Racetrack in San Bruno, California was a thoroughbred horse racing facility that operated from September 4, 1899 to July 31, 1964. Tanforan was constructed to serve a clientele from the nearby city of San Francisco. The facility was named after Toribio Tanforan, the grandson-in-law of Jose Antonio Sanchez, the grantee of Rancho Buri Buri. [1] [2]
In addition to horse racing, dog,[citation needed] motorcycle,[citation needed] and auto [3] races were also held at the track during its early years. Closed following California’s 1911 anti-gambling legislation, it reopened without betting for the 1923 and 1924 seasons through the subsidy of prominent area businessmen led by sugar magnate Adolph B. Spreckels. After 1924, it would be another ten years before a full racing season was held once the ban on parimutuel betting had been lifted. [4]
Hollywood film director Frank Capra filmed scenes for two of his films, Broadway Bill and Riding High, at the racetrack.[5]
EXHIBIT: “Emeryville’s Wild Gambling Past”
Did you know that Emeryville, a town just over one square mile in size, was once a gambling mecca with a huge one-mile horse-racing track? The city that today draws crowds to its shopping complexes has always been an entertainment center where card clubs, the Chinese Lottery, and the first dog races in the U.S. occurred and thrived. Thanks to years of original research by members of the Emeryville Historical Society, this fascinating story of a former “vice capital” is finally being brought to light from it’s wild West poker legacy to the failed crack-downs during prohibition and its last remaining card room.
A History of Gambling in Emeryville, a brand new exhibit at the Oakland Public Library’s Oakland History Room, uses pictures, pamphlets, and poker chips to tell the town¹s colorful past. This unique history of an East Bay community will be on display starting August 3 and running through October 4 at the Oakland History Room, located on the second floor of the Main Library at 125-14th Street. The free exhibit is co-sponsored by the Oakland Public Library and the Emeryville Historical Society.
The history of The Van’s is a colorful tale that dates back to around the turn of the century. Built in 1915, it originally was erected to house part of the Japanese Exhibition at the Panama Pacific International Exposition held in the San Francisco Marina District in commemoration of the opening of the Panama Canal. At the close of the exposition, all but two of the buildings were dismantled — the Palace of Fine Arts, which remains standing in San Francisco, and the Japanese Tea house.
Land Baron, E.D. Swift, purchased the Tea house in 1915 and barged the entire structure down the Bay to Belmont, California where the house then served for three years as a private residence for Swift’s two daughters. In 1921, teams of horses and mules pulled the structure up a steep dirt trail to its present location nestled in the hills overlooking the Bay Area.
In 1933 during Prohibition, Elsie Smuck bought the house and under the name “Elsie’s,” she offered bootlegged whiskey to a select group of friends and acquaintances. The speakeasy was also rumored to have slot machines and dice games operating on the first floor, and the use of the third floor was quite suspect as well.
A trolley that ran from San Francisco to Redwood City was the popular means of transportation to an from the secluded hideaway. With the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, Elsie’s became a legalized saloon,however, stories of gambling and harlotry lingered.
Upon her death in 1945, Elsie left the establishment to a prominent Burlingame citizen, and the saloon was turned into an Italian restaurant. Business partners Gene Sowle and Ivan Sawyer bought the restaurant in 1947 and renamed it “Gevan’s.” Ten years later they dissolved their partnership and Sawyer, who retained ownership of the restaurant, subsequently shortened the name to “The Van’s.”
Belmont is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States. It is in the San Francisco Bay Area, located half-way down the San Francisco Peninsula between San Mateo and San Carlos. It was originally part of the Rancho de las Pulgas, for which one of its main roads, the Alameda de las Pulgas, is named. The town was incorporated in 1926. The population was 25,835 at the 2010 census.
Ralston Hall is a historic landmark built by Bank of California founder, William Chapman Ralston, on the campus of Notre Dame de Namur University. It was built around a villa formerly owned by Count Cipriani, an Italian aristocrat. The locally famous “Waterdog Lake” is also located in the foothills and highlands of Belmont.
One of two surviving structures from the Panama-Pacific International Exposition is on Belmont Avenue (the other is the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco). The building was brought to Belmont by E.D. Swift shortly after the exposition closed in 1915. Swift owned a large amount of land in the area.
Belmont Soda Works
The 1870s saw the first industry local to Belmont, the Belmont Soda Works. Founded and operated by two German immigrants, Carl Augustus Janke and his son Carl Ferdinand, the Belmont Soda Works produced over one thousand bottles a month, selling sarsparilla and other drinks to people across the Peninsula.
The Jankes, in addition to founding the Belmont Soda Works, located on the west side of Old Country Road (150 feet from Ralston Avenue), they ran and owned Belmont Park. By selling drinks to the Park’s visitors, Janke was able to make his two businesses work together to increase his profit. Although the Soda Works would be gone by the early 20th century, it was not forgotten.Belmont Park
Belmont Park was well known in the latter part of the 19th century as a fine picnic spot. During its heyday, picnics took place weekly on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Trains made special runs to its location. The picnic grounds were the brainchild of Charles Janke, who was a native of Germany and who structured the park after his German experience.
The park could accommodate 300 people at its dance pavilion. Contests (three legged races, pony cart races, foot races, and marksmanship) were held regularly for the men. The ladies amused themselves in more docile ways: taking walks, dancing, or listening to the live music.
The park’s main entrance was at Ralston near 6th Avenue. Participants at park events included various organizations from San Francisco. At times, the San Franciscan crowd became so rowdy that it was appropriate for them to have brought along their own policemen, which many groups did. At times, this did not prove sufficient enough to quell the resulting disturbance and a jail was built to address the problems. In addition to violence which necessitated the use of a private jail, tragic occurrences took place at the park. Specifically, there was a gang related shooting and kidnapping.
By the beginning of the 20th century, charters were no longer run by Southern Pacific. It is uncertain whether the termination of service resulted from complaints of wealthy residents from Burlingame/Hillsborough who did not appreciate the tourists traversing their property or attributable to the horrific costs associated with the damages the drunken picnickers invoked on the trains.
The history of The Van’s is a colorful tale that dates back to around the turn of the century. Built in 1915, it originally was erected to house part of the Japanese Exhibition at the Panama Pacific International Exposition held in the San Francisco Marina District in commemoration of the opening of the Panama Canal. At the close of the exposition, all but two of the buildings were dismantled — the Palace of Fine Arts, which remains standing in San Francisco, and the Japanese Tea house.
Land Baron, E.D. Swift, purchased the Tea house in 1915 and barged the entire structure down the Bay to Belmont, California where the house then served for three years as a private residence for Swift’s two daughters. In 1921, teams of horses and mules pulled the structure up a steep dirt trail to its present location nestled in the hills overlooking the Bay Area.
In 1933 during Prohibition, Elsie Smuck bought the house and under the name “Elsie’s,” she offered bootlegged whiskey to a select group of friends and acquaintances. The speakeasy was also rumored to have slot machines and dice games operating on the first floor, and the use of the third floor was quite suspect as well.
A trolley that ran from San Francisco to Redwood City was the popular means of transportation to an from the secluded hideaway. With the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, Elsie’s became a legalized saloon,however, stories of gambling and harlotry lingered.
Upon her death in 1945, Elsie left the establishment to a prominent Burlingame citizen, and the saloon was turned into an Italian restaurant. Business partners Gene Sowle and Ivan Sawyer bought the restaurant in 1947 and renamed it “Gevan’s.” Ten years later they dissolved their partnership and Sawyer, who retained ownership of the restaurant, subsequently shortened the name to “The Van’s.”
Greyhound racing in Oregon began in 1933, when the Legislature passed a bill to
permit pari-mutuel wagering in the state. A group of principals from the Belmont
Greyhound Track in California formed the Multnomah Kennel Club and opened their
first racing season in May 1933 at Multnomah Stadium, now known locally as Civic
Stadium.
In the early 1850s Toribio Tanforan, an early Mexican era settler erected a pair of matching cottages on Dolores Street, north of 16th Street. Set on a very large lot, they served originally as farmhouses for him and his family. They are among the oldest houses surviving in San Francisco.
The “Tanforan Cottages,” so called because members of the family of Toribio Tanforan occupied them from 1896 to 1945, are simple frame structures with modified late Classical Revival facades. Though very nearly identical in appearance, they were not constructed at the same time; 214 Dolores is said to have been built a little before 1853, 220 not long after that date. This dating is questionable, though, as the first substantiated date is 1866, when Revilo Wells, owner of 214, had water piped in. There is still a small carriage house behind 220 Dolores–occupied as late as 1940 by one of the Tanforan carriages. The large gardens of these houses have been well maintained and contain many specimens of turn-of-the-century San Francisco taste in flora (Olmsted and Watkins 1969,
Toribio Tanforan was actually from Chile and passed away in 1884. His wife (called his relict in the SF Morning Call) passed away a few months later. He was only 54 and his wife 52 which gave me a real understanding of 19th century life-spans –unless they died in one o the numerous epidemics that swept through SF before the city had a reliable system for providing clean water and disposing of sewage.
They must have been a wealthy and influential family because they didn’t lose their land during the Gold Rush, as did so many Spanish land grant families. The fact that they kept their property during the skyrocketing rents of Gold Rush San Francisco also speaks to their prosperity as well as the fact that the Tanforan Racktrack (located on the former site of Rancho Buri Buri, a Spanish land grant farm), was named after Toribio. During the Gold Rush, small buildings in the Portsmith Square area were renting for $6000 a month and one building on the square rented for $150 a day, proving that high rents are nothing new in SF. The family survived fires and vigilante groups, corrupt mayors and even an unpaved Delores St as I found an image from the 1860’s which shows that the area that we now know as Delores St. was an unpaved mess, muddy during the winter and dusty during the summer.
In the 1860’s, SF had its first amusement park just two blocks away. Located at 16th and Valencia, it was called “The Willows” and its prize exhibit was a Emu. That inspired one of Bret Harte’s early verses (not very well known but maybe better so).
“O say, have you seen the Willows so great,
So charming and rurally true,
A singular bird, with the manner absurd,
Which they call the Australian Emu?”
Well, maybe you had to be there.
In the 1860s, the population had bloomed up to 56,000 and Kearny St. was the city’s chief shopping center. Horse drawn cars went up and down Market St. and for the fee of a whole .5 cents (maybe high for the time); you could ride all the way to the Ferry Building. The Tanforan family wouldn’t have had to use public transportation; after all, they had their own carriage and a building to house it in. The city had its first newspaper, the San Francisco Call Bulletin, its first theatre (The Jenny Lind), and the city had grown from a motley collection of tents and shacks to mid-sized city. They even had paved streets in the downtown area and a succession of officials, some corrupt and some not. Some were efficient and some….were not. Obviously, some things never change.
Landmark 67
Tanforan Cottage 1
214 Dolores Street Between 15th and 16th Streets
Mission Dolores
Built 1853
This is one of a pair of redwood cottages built by the Tanforan ranching family on land that lay within the 1836 Mexican Grant to Francisco Guerrero. Located only half a block from Mission Dolores, the oldest building in San Francisco, these two cottages are probably the oldest residential buildings in the Mission District.
Landmark 68
Tanforan Cottage 2
220 Dolores Street Between 15th and 16th Streets
Mission Dolores
Built 1854
The following is quoted from Here Today, San Francisco’s Architectural Heritage by Roger Olmsted and T. H. Watkins, published by Chronicle Books in 1969:
Two very old houses that have maintained their original appearance can be seen side-by-side at 220 and 214 Dolores Street. The “Tanforan Cottages,” so called because members of the family of Toribio Tanforan occupied them from 1896 to 1945, are simple frame structures with modified late Classical Revival facades. Though very nearly identical in appearance, they were not constructed at the same time; 214 Dolores is said to have been built a little before 1853, 220 not long after that date. This dating is questionable, though, as the first substantiated date is 1866, when Revilo Wells, owner of 214, had water piped in. There is still a small carriage house behind 220 Dolores – occupied as late as 1940 by one of the Tanforan carriages. The large gardens of these houses have been well-maintained and contain many specimens of turn-of-the-century San Francisco taste in flora.
Tanforan cottages, you have met your match. Mission Loc@l reports on the discovery what is perhaps the oldest house in San Francisco at 1266 Hampshire (between 24th and 25th), dating to 1849. It has been traced to the brothers John and George Treat, whence the street name came.
“The house on Hampshire, historians said, was likely built in 1849 — the year a pair of influential pioneer brothers arrived in San Francisco — or 1850.” It was identified during the city’s South Mission Historic Resources survey.
Gregory Thomas of Mission Loc@l does a fine job referencing maps, but he makes the rookie mistake of stopping with the 1861 Langley map in the search for Treat. But going back to the 1859 US Coast Survey map, we can see the Treat compound at its original wonky angle, next to their Pioneer Race Course.
“Historians believe the house was lifted and moved about 100 feet east of its original location as streetcar lines were extended into the Mission –- reoriented to comply with a grid-style layout as the neighborhood took shape.” The concept of lifting up and moving a house simply blows my mind.
It seems like that block of three houses (marked in green) are the Treat compound. Red is the “new” position at 1266 Hampshire. The red arc is the edge of the Treat’s Pioneer race course, about 300 yards away.
(Google Earth rant — make sure you frequent save your Places. Apparently Google doesn’t believe in autosave. GE crashed and I lost about 15 hours of work on maps. Ripshit doesn’t begin to cover how I feel right now. Someone please make me an HTML5 based map/image overlay tool, OK? (Hint hint ,Stamen.))
Anyway, rant off. The San Francisco County Recorder’s office has ridiculously detailed maps of the land tracts and subdivisions through the history of the city. (Warning, not friendly to browse. A/B/1/2/3 are the oldest sets.) Here we see the 1864 submission for the “Pioneer Race Course Tract” (click to zoom
making his home in Belmont in the Chateau that once belonged to Count
Cipriani, a prominent figure in Europe.
1822-1846 Rancho Buri Buri, owned by Jose Sanchez, covered 15,000 acres in what later became Colma, Burlingame, San Bruno, South San Francisco and Burlingame. Rancho Laguna de la Merced, owned by Jose Antonio Gallindo, covered a half league around the lake. He sold it to Francisco de Haro, the son-in-law of Jose Sanchez.
Rancho Buri Buri
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rancho Buri Buri (also called Sánchez Rancho) was a 14,639-acre (59.24 km2) Mexican land grant in present day San Mateo County, California given in 1835 by Governor José Castro to José Antonio Sánchez.[1] The name derives from the Urebure village of the Ramaytush speaking Yelamu tribe of Ohlone people who were settled by the banks of San Bruno Creek. Rancho Buri Buri extended between the north line of South San Francisco and the middle of Burlingame, and from the San Francisco Bay to the top of the Peninsula ridge and included present day Lomita Park, Millbrae, South San Francisco, San Bruno, and the northern part of Burlingame.[2]
[edit] History
Rancho Buri Buri, which was first established as grazing land for Mission Dolores and the Presidio of San Francisco. In 1827, Sub lieutenant José Antonio Sánchez, who was stationed at the Presidio, was granted permission by Mexican governor José María de Echeandía to occupy the rancho for “grazing and agricultural purposes”. The land grant was confirmed in 1835, by Governor Castro. Sánchez worked the land from the time it was granted to him until his death in 1843. Upon his death, the rancho lands were divided between his 10 children.
THE CATTLE KING AND THE TIDEWATER TYCOON
A TALE OF TWO HENRYS
Henry Miller. Henry Rengstorff. Parallel lives – up to a point. What’s the connection? Henry Miller was one of the many producers who shipped farm products through Henry Rengstorff’s Mountain View Landing, as shown by Rengstorff’s recently restored journal from the 1880s. Miller’s company, Miller & Lux, owned 130 acres in Mountain View adjacent to the railroad tracks and shipped wheat in 1880 and 1881.
Henry was an “adopted” name for each man: Miller was born Heinrich Alfred Kreiser, Rengstorff as Michael Heinrich Rengstorff. Both were born in Germany – Miller in 1827, Rengstorff in 1829. (Miller and Rengstorff’s wife Christina were born one year and 40 miles apart.) Miller arrived in San Francisco in 1850 with six dollars in his pocket, Rengstorff, also in 1850, with four dollars. Miller died in 1916 owning a million acres in California, Nevada and Oregon – and controlling millions more; he was the largest private land owner in the United States. Rengstorff, one of the most prominent of Mountain View’s citizens, died in 1906 with 2,000 acres in two counties – and his wharf on the tidewaters where Stevens Creek empties into San Francisco Bay.
Miller/Kreiser arrived in New York in 1847 and plied his trade as a butcher. With the California gold discovery of 1848 he was determined to get there, not to search for the precious metal for he knew nothing of mining and cared little for easy money. All he knew was the raising, slaughtering and sale of livestock, and he knew that demand for meat would be intense. The butcher developed a friendship with a shoe salesman by the name of Henry Miller, who also planned to go to California and purchased a ticket for the passage. But the shoe salesman changed his mind and offered to sell the ticket to his friend the butcher. Later, with the ticket in his hand, Miller/Kreiser noticed the inscription “Not Transferable.” So, on boarding the vessel, he identified himself as “Henry Miller” and that became his name for the rest of his life. In 1858, he had enough influence to have the State Legislature pass a special act formalizing the Miller name.
Rengstorff came for gold but on arriving in San Francisco abandoned that idea and saw his future in farming and shipping. It is not clear whether any formality attached to Rengstorff’s use of the name “Henry.”
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