page_title: Rancho Santa Rita
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Rancho Santa Rita / History
caption_attribution_description: English: All photos used in this post were provided by the City of Pleasanton. This photo shows the Kroeger family (Peter and Henriette Kroeger, tenant farmers, and daughter Lena) in front of the Alviso adobe, circa 1900.
context_page_description: Rancho Santa Rita was a 8,894-acre Mexican land grant in the Amador Valley and western Livermore Valley, which is in present day Alameda County, California.
  It was given in 1839 by Governor Juan Alvarado to Jose Dolores Pacheco.
  The rancho included present day Pleasanton, Asco, and Dougherty.
context_section_description: Rancho Santa Rita was granted in 1839 to Pueblo de San José alcalde Jose Dolores Pacheco. It extended east from present day Foothill Road, with the Rancho Las Positas adjacent in the eastern Livermore Valley, Rancho San Ramon on the north and the Rancho Valle de San Jose on the south,   Pacheco was an absentee landowner, but had a small adobe built in 1844, which is no longer standing. In 1854, Francisco Alviso, the son of Pacheco's majordomo (ranch manager), Francisco Solano Alviso, built the adobe ranch house that still stands on Foothill Road in the Alviso Adobe Community Park overlooking Amador Valley.
  A claim for Rancho Santa Rita was filed with the Public Land Commission in 1852, and the grant was patented to John Yountz, administrator of the estate of José Dolores Pacheco in 1865.
  In 1853, Rancho Santa Rita was sold to Augustin Alviso, grantee of Rancho Potrero de los Cerritos, by the heirs of Jose Delores Pacheco, Juana Pacheco and Salvio Pacheco.  In 1854, Samuel B. Martin and West J. Martin purchased Rancho Santa Rita. They sold the ranch in 1865, and moved to Oakland.
  In 1865 William M. Mendenhall came to the valley, and in 1868 purchased 650 acres (2.6 km²) of the Rancho Santa Rita grant. During the period of the railroad boom in the late 1860s, Rancho Santa Rita was sub divided into fifteen farms. The farms were "small" tracts of about 300 acres (1.2 km²) to 3,750 acres (15.2 km²). The larger land owners consisted of J.W. Dougherty, 750 acres (3.0 km²); Abdijah Baker, 2,078 acres (8.4 km²); and William Knox, 360 acres (1.5 km²).
  In 1869 J.W. Kottinger and J.A. Neal each laid out and plotted a subdivision for a new town called Alisal, situated about five miles south of Dublin. By 1878 the village was an unincorporated town of about 500 people, later renamed Pleasanton.  Like Livermore, Pleasanton attained its size and importance with coming of the Union Pacific Railroad.
  In the early 1880s, Count Valensin purchased 140 acres (0.6 km²), Maas Suders purchased a strip of land from the Mendenhall's 650 acres (2.6 km²), and Samuel Hewlett purchased 1,600 acres (6.5 km²).  In 1894 the remainder of Rancho Santa Rita was offered for sale by Lagrance and Company of Oakland.
  In 1921 what was left of the Mexican grant was sold to Asa Mendenhall.
caption: Kroeger family at the Alviso Adobe (circa 1900)
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