Luis Arenas
Rancho San Jose was a 22,340-acre (90.4 km2) Mexican land grant in northeastern Los Angeles County given in 1837 by Governor Juan Bautista Alvarado to Ygnacio Palomares and Ricardo Vejar. Today, the communities of Pomona, LaVerne, San Dimas, Diamond Bar, Azusa, Covina, Walnut, Glendora, and Claremont are located in whole or part on land that was once part of the Rancho San Jose.
Ygnacio Palomares and Ricardo Vejar, owned a considerable number of horses and cattle, which they kept at Rancho Rodeo de las Aguas owned by Maria Rita Valdez de Villa. The place was too crowded for the livestock of three families, so Palomares and Vejar sought their own land. In 1837, Mexican Governor Alvarado granted Rancho San Jose to Palomares and Vejar. The Rancho was created from land from the secularized Mission San Gabriel Arcángel. The boundaries were laid out by Palomares and Vejar on March 19, 1837, the feast day of St. Joseph, thus leading the men to name the ranch after the saint.Father José Maria de Zalvidea accompanied the party from the San Gabriel Mission, performing the first Christian religious ceremony in the Pomona Valley when he performed a benediction for settlers of the rancho under an oak tree located at what is now 458 Kenoak Place in Pomona.
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