Rancho Catacula was a 8,546-acre (34.58 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day Napa County, California given in 1844 by Governor Manuel Micheltorena to Joseph Ballinger Chiles.
[3] Chiles set up a grist mill and later built a distillery and began producing whiskey on a small scale.
In 1848 Chiles made another overland trip to California, bringing his own family of a son and three daughters.
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.
[7] In 1877, the Whittle family bought 990 acres (4.0 km2) of in the eastern portion of Rancho Catacula called Elder Valley.