Rancho Dos Pueblos was a 15,535-acre (62.87 km2) Mexican land grant in present day Santa Barbara County, California given in 1842 by Governor Juan Alvarado to Nicolas A.
[4] The first European visitors to the coast of California were Spanish maritime explorers led by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, who spent several days around the Channel Islands in 1542 before sailing farther north.
A land expedition led by Gaspar de Portolà camped at Dos Pueblos Creek on August 21-22, 1769, on its way to Monterey Bay.
Franciscan missionary Juan Crespi, who accompanied the expedition, noted the presence of two native towns, facing each other across the creek from the bluffs above, near the ocean.
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.
San Francisco lawyer, Thomas B. Bishop, who specialized in transfers of Mexican land rights, sued Hollister on behalf of the Den children in 1876, and won the case in 1890.