Page 2 - hssc1929parks

IN PURSUIT OF VANISHED DAYS
Visits to the Extant Historic Adobe Houses
of Los Angeles County
Part II*
By MARION PARKS
Rancho San Jose
In one of the early years of the 1830's, Don Ygnácio
Palomares and Don Ricardo Vejar, two California caballeros
of good Spanish blood, rode out on the morning of May 19,
which is the day of the festival of San José, to the place we
call Pomona. They went to survey, after the manner of their
time - a procedure involving
the use of no tripods or steel tape
- a rancho which they had received permission to lay off in
the valley east of El Monte and west of the arroyo which runs
south from San Antonio Canon. The party had started out
from Misión San Gabriel that morning and were accompanied
by Father Zalvidea. Under a great old oak on the land that
conducted a service of thanks-
they had chosen, the missionary
and
giving and benediction, gave to the new rancho the name
of San José.
Under a grant from Governor Alvarado, dated April 15,
1837, the vast tract was held jointly by the two friends. Don
portion, and was called San José
Ygnácio's was the northern
de Arriba, or Upper San José; that of Don Ricardo was San
José de Abajo, or San José Below.
The two original ranch houses they built are both gone,
but five other old adobe homes still stand among the orange
groves that have succeeded the herds of grazing cattle on
Rancho San José.
La Casa de Don Ygnácio Palomares
Don Ygnácio himself built at least three adobe houses at
Upper San José, two of which are extant. The delightful
adobe at 1569 N. Park Avenue was the second home of Don
Ygnácio, built after 1837. His first home stood not far south-
west of this, and some of the bricks of the old house went into
the construction of the new. It consists of five rooms in a

* Part I appeared in the 1928 publication of the Historical Society of Southern
California.