Rancho El Escorpión

Rancho El Escorpión was a 1,110-acre (4.5 km2) Mexican land grant in present day Los Angeles County, California given in 1845 by Governor Pío Pico to three Chumash Native Americans - Odón Chijulla, Urbano, and Mañuel.

[9] According to a historical summary in an application for federal recognition filed by the Fernandefio Tataviam, "The expression Chari meant that Urbano was the headman of his lineage community, Siutcabit.

He obtained a 5/12 section of land which lay adjacent to Rancho El Escorpión on the northern side (now the Chatsworth Reservoir area).

[2][3] Odón and Juana Eusebia's daughter, Maria del Espíritu Santo Chijulla (1821–1906), married José Antonio Menéndez (m.1856–1859.

[3] 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.

[2][14] In 1871, Miguel Leonis acquired Odón Chijulla's holdings of Rancho El Escorpión, along with an adobe on ranch lands in Calabasas adjacent along the southern boundary.

In 1875, a dispute between Leonis and ex-Civil War soldier homesteaders resulted in a violent confrontation that raged on for two weeks through what is now Hidden Hills.

[20][21][22] Her Attorney was Major Horace Bell (1839–1918), also her neighbor who owned the land where Rancho El Escorpión’s misplaced adobes were built in the 1840s.