Rancho Temecula
Rancho Temecula was a 26,609-acre (107.68 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day Riverside County, California given on 14 December 1844 by Governor Manuel Micheltorena to Feliz Valdez. The grant extended south along the east bank Murrieta Creek to Temecula Creek and encompassed present-day Temecula, Murrieta and Murrieta Hot Springs. At the time of the US patent, Rancho Temecula was a part of San Diego County. Riverside County was created by the California Legislature in 1893 by taking land from both San Bernardino and San Diego Counties.
Felix Valdes, a Mexican army officer, was granted Rancho Temecula – six square leagues in the Temecula Valley that was formerly part of the lands of the Mission San Luis Rey. In 1846 Felix Valdes sold Rancho Temecula to Frenchman Jean-Louis Vignes (Juan Luis Vignes). Vignes owned both Rancho Temecula and the adjacent Rancho Pauba.
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 Temecula was filed with the Public Land Commission in 1852. In 1853, squatters David Cline (or Kline) and William Moody, started a ranch with 200 acres fenced in, growing wheat and cutting hay at Alamos Springs on the land of the rancho, in an attempt to challenge the title. Kline's Ranch as it became known became an overnight stopping place for travelers and later became a swing station of the Butterfield Overland Mail known as Alamos or Willow Springs Station near the present-day intersection of Cherry Avenue and Jefferson Avenue. However the grant was patented to Jean-Louis Vignes in 1860. Kline's Ranch remained as a stage station until the Butterfeild route was closed by the American Civil War. It then became a Union Army cavalry camp in 1862, part of the supply route for Fort Yuma and the California Column march into New Mexico Territory.
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