Rancho Los Capitancillos

Rancho Los Capitancillos was a 3,360-acre (13.6 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day Santa Clara County, California given in 1842 by Governor Juan B. Alvarado to Justo Larios.

[4] In 1848, Cook sold the northern part of the grant (Rancho Cañada de los Capitancillos) to the Guadalupe Mining Company.

[7] 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.

José Reyes Berreyessa laid claim to the mine on the basis that it lay on Rancho San Vicente.

A complex legal case described by The New York Times as "one of the most remarkable civil trials in this or any other country",[12] United States v. Andres Castillero eventually reached the United States Supreme Court whereupon it was finally decided in 1862 that, the mine was on Rancho Los Capitancillos, and that the furnaces and improvements of the company below the hill were on Rancho San Vicente.