Historical Marker · No. 1026
Santa Margarita Ranch
Camp Pendleton, San Diego County · California
Erected by State Department of Parks and Recreation in cooperation with the United States Marine Corps and the Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus, Squibob Chapter, April 25, 1998
The bronze lists owners and stops. The buildings outlasted every one of them. The adobe that is now the base chapel is the oldest structure on Camp Pendleton, raised about 1808 as mission property, lived in by the Pico family while the ranch house was finished, then a winery, then a tool shed, then the blacksmith's room. The ranch house quartered the families of thirty-five Marine Corps generals, the last of them until 2007. It has stood empty since, waiting on funding for earthquake work.
What the plaque says
Santa Margarita Ranch In July, 1769, the Portola expedition named this area for St. Margaret of Antioch. The Mission San Luis Rey 1827 inventories list a small building in the area. In 1841, Rancho Santa Margarita y San Onofre was granted to Andres and Pio Pico, the last governor of Alta California. Land magnate, Don Juan Forster, owned the rancho from 1864-1882. Richard O'Neill and James Flood purchased 205,000 acres in 1882. The ranch house stop served the 1882 transcontinental California Southern Railroad. In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated Marine Corps Base Camp Joseph H. Pendleton. The railroad line continued as a vital military transportation link before devastation by the 1993 flood. California Registered Historical Landmark No. 1026 Plaque placed by the State Department of Parks and Recreation in cooperation with the United States Marine Corps and the Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus, Squibob Chapter, April 25, 1998.
Where it stands
33.30810, -117.34132 · Directions
More markers nearby
- Mission San Luis Rey de Francia — 5.4 mi
- Las Flores Asistencia — 6.9 mi
- Rancho Guajome — 7.2 mi
- Leo Carrillo Ranch — 14 mi