Rancho San Vicente y Santa Monica
Rancho San Vicente y Santa Monica was a 33,000-acre (130 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day Los Angeles County, California given by governor Juan Alvarado in 1839 to Francisco Sepulveda, a soldier and citizen of Los Angeles. The rancho included what are now Santa Monica, Brentwood, Mandeville Canyon, and parts of West Los Angeles.
In 1839, Governor Alvarado gave possession to Francisco Sepulveda of the lands known as San Vicente, with a piece of pasture (potrero) named Santa Monica. But the boundaries of the lands were not well defined and there was soon a dispute as to the territory included. In 1839 Francisco Marquez and Ysidro Reyes had received the grant to Rancho Boca de Santa Monica which also included the "potrero" of Santa Monica. In 1840 Francisco Sepulveda petitioned governor Alvarado to place him in "...pacific possession of the property, as Francisco Marquez and Ysidro Reyes have given a bad example of disobedience and that under the strength of discordant documents they remain in possession of the place called Santa Monica".
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 San Vicente y Santa Monica was filed with the Public Land Commission in 1852. The dispute over the boundaries continued and was not settled until the question came into the United States courts. After long litigation, the Rancho San Vicente y Santa Monica grant was patented to the Sepulveda heirs at 30,260 acres (122 km2) in 1881.
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