Rancho El Rio de Santa Clara o la Colonia

Rancho El Rio de Santa Clara o la Colonia was a 44,883-acre (181.64 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day Ventura County, California, given in 1837 by Governor Juan B. Alvarado to seven people.

[1] The grant extended from the Santa Clara River south to the present-day Point Mugu Naval Air Station, and the boundary of Rancho Guadalasca, and east from the Pacific Ocean to the present-day 101 Freeway, and the boundary of Rancho Santa Clara del Norte.

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.

As required by the Land Act of 1851, a claim for Rancho El Rio de Santa Clara o la Colonia was filed with the Public Land Commission in 1852,[3][4] and the grant was patented to Valenta Cota et al. in 1872.

[5] In the 1860s, Thomas R. Bard agent for Thomas Alexander Scott and his Philadelphia and California Petroleum Company, bought a five sevenths undivided share of El Rio de Santa Clara o la Colonia.