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

• Mentryville and Pico Canyon — 4.2 mi
  A company town in a canyon, and a mile and a half further up the road, the well that started the California oil industry.
• Pioneer Oil Refinery — 6.9 mi
  The first commercially successful refinery in the West, built in 1876 to take the crude coming down the pipeline from Pico Canyon.
• St. Francis Dam Disaster Site — 8.0 mi
  The dam failed just before midnight on March 12, 1928, and the flood ran fifty miles down the canyon to the sea.
• Oak of the Golden Dream — 8.8 mi
  Gold was found in California here in 1842, six years before Sutter's Mill, and the oak it was found under is still standing.

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