Rancho El Conejo
Rancho El Conejo was a 48,572-acre (196.56 km2) Spanish land grant in California given in 1803 to Jose Polanco and Ygnacio Rodriguez that encompassed the area now known as the Conejo Valley in southeastern Ventura and northwestern Los Angeles Counties. El Conejo means "The Rabbit" in Spanish, and refers to the many rabbits common to the region (the desert cottontail and brush rabbit species). The east-west grant boundaries approximately went from the border of Westlake Village near Lindero Canyon Road in the east to the Conejo Grade (the top of the hill along the 101 Freeway looking down into Camarillo) in the west. The north-south borders extended from the top of the Simi Hills at the end of Moorpark Road in the north to Hidden Valley in the Santa Monica Mountains in the south. The rancho is the site of the communities of Newbury Park, Thousand Oaks, and Westlake Village.
Former Santa Barbara Presidio soldiers Jose Polanco and Ygnacio Rodriquez were granted Rancho El Conejo in 1803. Polanco, eventually lost his land due to neglect. In 1822, influential Santa Barbara army officer José de la Guerra y Noriega was granted Polanco's claim by Spanish Governor Pablo Vicente de Solá.
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 Conejo was filed with the Public Land Commission in 1852, and the grant was patented to José de la Guerra y Noriega and María del Carmen de Rodríguez in 1873.
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