06/09/2026
Who Owned Rancho Santa Anita?
California’s native tribes had a different understanding of land ownership than did their European counterparts. In the late 1860’s, King Charles III of Spain sent a contingent of soldiers and Franciscan padres to settle the Alta (Upper) California, which he claimed for the Spanish Crown. Possession being “nine-tenths of the law”, the king now “owned” Alta California. To develop the land and reward loyalists, the Spanish governors divided Alta California into scores of ranchos, Santa Anita among them. When Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1821, Alta California fell under Mexican rule, and in 1833 the new owners began to secularize the missions, erasing much of the Spanish heritage of California.
The Mexican-American War (1846-48) resulted in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, wherein Mexico ceded more than half its land to the United States. Under Mexican rule, Hugo and Victoria Reid became the first individual owners of the Santa Anita Rancho in 1845. In 1847, Henry Dalton purchased the ranch from Hugo Reid, then sold it to circus owner Joseph Rowe seven years later. Rowe made some improvements to the property, but eventually became the only man to lose money as owner of Santa Anita. In 1857, Rowe quietly sold out to the partnership of Dibblee, Corbitt, and Barker, clearing a measly $2,300 on an investment of $33,000.
Ex-trapper William Wolfskill was next in line, acquiring the rancho’s remaining 11,319 acres from Dibblee and Corbitt in 1865 for the bargain price of $20,000. Shortly afterward, Wolfskill died and his son Louis assumed control, subdividing the ranch and reducing its size to a little more than 8,000 acres.
In 1872, wealthy merchant Harris Newmark came along and purchased the Rancho Santa Anita from Louis Wolfskill for $85,000. Three years later, Newmark sold his interest in the ranch to Elias Jackson “Lucky” Baldwin for $200,000 ($25 an acre). E. J. Baldwin died in 1909 and his daughter Anita became overseer of ranch operations. She sold the remaining 1,300 acres of the Rancho Santa Anita to Harry Chandler of the Los Angeles Times, who began subdividing the property. Before the entire ranch could be consumed by development, the Arboretum Committee of the Southern California Horticultural Institute, with the help of the State and County of California, purchased what is now the Los Angeles Arboretum and Botanic Garden. Below is a photograph of the Mission San Gabriel by Henry T. Payne from the mid-1870’s.
