Rancho San Francisco

Mission San Fernando ran cattle up here and built a granary at the river junction in 1804, having first moved the Tataviam whose ground it was down to the mission. When the missions were broken up the rancho was supposed to go back to them. Governor Alvarado gave it to his friend Antonio del Valle instead, in 1839. Eleven years later William Manly and John Rogers walked in off the desert, bought animals and supplies here, and turned around for Death Valley.

What the plaque says

Approximately one-half mile south of this point was the adobe headquarters of Rancho San Francisco, originally built about 1804 as a granary of Mission San Fernando. The rancho was granted to Antonio de Valle in 1839. Here, in January 1850, William Lewis Manly and John Rogers obtained supplies and animals to rescue their comrades in a California-bound gold-seeking emigrant party that was stranded and starving in Death Valley, some 250 miles to the northeast.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Colorado Street Bridge — 32 mi
  Beaux-Arts concrete arches curving 150 feet above the Arroyo Seco, opened in 1913 and later a link in Route 66.

More markers nearby

• Mentryville — 4.2 mi
• Well, CSO 4 (Pico 4) — 5.0 mi
• Pioneer Oil Refinery — 6.9 mi
• Lyons Station Stagecoach Stop — 7.8 mi