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The Del Valle Family

cho El Tejon, and in 1857 he bought Rancho He sold these lands to a San Francisco based petro-
Temescal for $4,000. Through the years the gradual leum company with the hope that their exploratory
sale of these two ranchos and portions of the wells would come in and raise the value of the re-
Camulos rancho furnished the needed capital to pay mainder of his land. In his letter to Brent, he didn't
off the npmerous mortgages Y gnacio contracted dur- mention that his property taxes had risen 200 percent
ing the 186os and 1870s. or that he had had to slaughter all his sheep to keep
In 1930 Reginaldo remembered that the original them from suffering.
partition of Camulos had been for 1800 acres. Actu- The disasters of 1862-1863 spelled an end to the
ally this had dwindled to 1340 acres by 1886. 8 As the Californio owned cattle industry. Seeing that this was
del Valles sold portions of their rancho to stay sol- so, Ygnacio turned to citrus agriculture, one of the
vent, the amazing thing was that Reginaldo and the first to do so in Ventura County. He borrowed large
family were not bitter about the erosion of their sums to invest in fruit and nut trees and wine
landed heritage. An explanation for this was that they grapes. 11 To supplement income while waiting for
were whole heartedly committed to finance capi- full production he leased out grazing lands to local
talism and the new commercial ethic. Reginaldo was ranchers. Nevertheless, expenses constantly outran
a lawyer and a well known politician with many income and Ygnacio took out a series of mortgages to
Anglo-American friends . The del Valle children who remain solvent, one to Newhall in 1876 for $10,000
married, all married Anglo-Americans. The family at 3 percent a year and another, a few years later, for
perhaps felt that it was receiving psychic income $15,776 at 6 percent per year. 12
from Reginaldo's political prominence and the fame There were many expenses. Besides the extended
generated by Helen Hunt Jackson and later by family oflegitimate and adopted children, aunts and
Charles Fletcher Lummis. More than this Reginaldo uncles that numbered 20 persons, almost 200 Indians
and his family really respected and admired the and Mexicans lived on the rancho. Ygnacio believed
capitalists who bought portions of their ranch, Henry in parochial education and at considerable expense he
Newhall and William Wolfskill; and the land was sent all of his children to high schools in Santa Bar-
appreciating in value at a fantastic rate. bara and Los Angeles. His sons, Reginaldo and
Much has been made about the "typically Spanish" Ulipano, both attended Santa Clara College. Regi-
architecture of the Camulos adobe - a style that has naldo studied several years in San Francisco to be-
inspired imitators among real estate subdividers and come a lawyer. Later, when Reginaldo ran for his first
land speculators down through the decades. Actually political office, an assembly seat, the family bor-
16 of the 20 rooms of the adobe home were built after rowed $2,000 at 6 percent to pay for his campaign.
1850. 9 A demand for cattle in the gold fields of the His later political career probably also put the family
north made possible the wealth that financed con- deeper into debt.
struction. This prosperity came to an abrupt halt in Despite these expenses and due to costly invest-
1863 when a drought almost wiped them out. In a ments, Camulos became a show place of the new
letter to Joseph Lancaster Brent, a long time friend of agricultural revolution that was beginning in
the family, Ygnacio reported that he had lost about California. Politicians and promoters began visiting
half of his herd and that he had had to sell portions of the rancho to praise its productive capacity and
his interests in Rancho San Francisco for $21 ,ooo. 10 beauty.

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