Moov’in Around: 19th Century Cattle Ranching at Blue Oaks Ranch Reserve, California

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Life and Death in the San Francisco Bay: Multi-Disciplinary Approaches to Historic Lifeways", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Rancho Cañada de Pala was a 15,000-acre Mexican Land Grant established in 1839. A small section of this original ranch forms Blue Oaks Ranch Reserve in Santa Clara County. When California became a US state in 1850, the ranch was slowly subdivided into smaller segments with various owners, but its prime use continued to be cattle ranching. After the 1880s, the area was home to several families of tenant ranchers, who contracted with land owners to live on the property and raise cattle. Much of the lives of these 19th century ranchers has been lost to history. Here we report on the initial efforts of the UC Davis Field School (2023) to identify homesteads and activities associated with these ranchers in order to understand the impact of increased immigration, severe drought, and changing farming practices on historical ranching in California.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2024   •
• Life and Death in the San Francisco Bay: Multi-Disciplinary Approaches to Historic Lifeways

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow