Rancho Buena Ventura

The grant extended some nineteen miles on the west side of the Sacramento River, from Cottonwood Creek on the south to Salt Creek on the north, and extended approximately three miles west of the Sacramento River the length of the grant.

After serving as an artillery lieutenant then as paymaster at the rank of major in a battalion led by John C. Frémont, he built a permanent adobe dwelling and settled on his grant in 1847.

[2] With the cession of California to the United States following the Mexican-American War, the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo provided that the land grants would be honored.

In 1866, Reading borrowed from the estate of his longtime friend Samuel J. Hensley, using the remaining rancho lands as collateral.

After Reading's unexpected death in 1868, the remaining rancho lands were sold to James Ben Ali Haggin at public auction in 1871 to satisfy the unpaid debt.