Rancho El Sur
[3][4][5][6][7] Before the arrival of Europeans, the land was occupied by the Esselen people, who resided along the upper Carmel and Arroyo Seco Rivers, and along the Big Sur coast from near present-day Hurricane Point to the vicinity of Vicente Creek in the south.
Most of the Esselen people's villages within the current Los Padres National Forest were left largely uninhabited.
"[11] Mexican Governor José Figueroa granted Rancho El Sur comprising two square leagues of land (8,949.06-acre (36.22 km2)) on the Big Sur coast to Juan Bautista Alvarado (1809 -1882) in 1834. Cooper was apparently involved in managing the ranch as early as 1834, when he negotiated an agreement with Job Dye to permit him to raise mules on the property.
[12] When Mexico ceded California to the United States following the Mexican-American War, the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo provided that the land grants would be honored.
But California passed the Land Act of 1851, which required grantees to provide legal proof of their title.
In the 1850s Cooper landed smuggled goods at the mouth of Big Sur River to avoid the heavy customs charges levied by the Americans at Monterey.
Cooper became a Monterey County supervisor and managed Rancho Bolsa del Potrero y Moro Cojo between present-day Castroville and Tembladero Slough.
[21] After her son Alfred died in an automobile accident on September 2, 1913, his two siblings assigned their interest in the estate including his share of the Rancho to their mother, Martha.
John B. H. Cooper's sister Francisca Amelia married Eusebius J. Molera, an engineer and architect born in Spain, on March 28, 1876, in Vallejo, California.
[25][26] The marriage between the Cooper and Molera families left a legacy marked by their names on notable places throughout the region, including the Cooper-Molera Adobe in Monterey.
[30][31][32][33] During the time the Cooper family owned the land, they managed it as a cattle ranch and dairy, employing Hispanic and Indian vaqueros.
The ranch buildings consist of old sheds and tumble-down adobes peopled with geese, chickens, hogs, calves, and Mexicans of all ages and conditions.Cooper's daughter, Amelia, married Spanish engineer Eusebio Joseph Molera in 1875.
In 1965, almost 100 years after her family gained title, she sold 2,200-acre (890 ha) of the original land grant west of Highway 1 to The Nature Conservancy with the intent it become a state park.
[39] The conservancy held the beachfront property in trust until the state of California could finance the purchase of the land.
This article incorporates public domain content from United States and California government sources.
