Rancho La Puente was a ranch in the southern San Gabriel Valley that measured just under , and remained intact from its establishment in the late 1700s as an outpost of Mission San Gabriel until about 1870. By modern landmarks, the ranch extended from San Gabriel River on the west to just west of the 57 Freeway on the east and from Ramona Boulevard/San Bernardino Road on the north to the Puente Hills on the south. All but , which fall within Orange County, are within Los Angeles County. The present communities of Avocado Heights, Bassett, Baldwin Park, San Dimas, Rowland Heights, Hacienda Heights, City of Industry, La Puente, Walnut, Covina, West Covina, and small sections of South El Monte and Irwindale are contained within the old boundaries of Rancho La Puente.
History
The name "La Puente" originates from the Spanish Portola Expedition of 1769-1770, the first land-based exploration of Alta California by Europeans. In July, 1769 the party came north through "la abra" (later altered into La Habra), "an opening" or pass through the Puente Hills. Descending down into a valley the expedition dubbed "San Miguel" (now the San Gabriel Valley), the group headed northwest and camped near a large stream (now the San Gabriel River). Father Juan Crespi noted in his diary that the expedition had to build a bridge ("la puente") to cross the stream because the channel was so miry. That first bridge, and later more permanent bridges across the river, gave the area its name.
The Rancho La Puente was created as one of many outlying ranchos operated by Mission San Gabriel from its founding in 1771 at Whittier Narrows and its relocation to its current site within four years. The Mexican government secularized the missions in the middle 1830s, at which time the mission ranchos passed into private ownership.
At the end of 1841, a group of travelers and settlers arrived in the Los Angeles area from New Mexico, now referred to as the Workman-Rowland Party. Led by American John A. Rowland (ca. 1797-1873) and British native William Workman (1799–1876), the expedition contained American, European, and New Mexican members who settled throughout California. Rowland traveled, in early 1842, to the capital at Monterey and petitioned Governor Juan Bautista Alvarado for the Rancho La Puente. The grant was finalized in March with boundaries specified as ".... being on the East bounded by El Chino and San Jose, and on the West by the River San Gabriel on the North by the land of Don Luis Arenas, and on the South by the lands of the Senor [Juan] Perez of the los Nietos and los Coyotes ...." or "more or less" four square leagues, or . Strangely, William Workman, who had been implicated in what was claimed to be an assassination attempt of New Mexico's governor during a period in which the independent Republic of Texas plotted to annex most of that territory, was not included in the original grant, although a document was issued by Alvarado at the time of the grant, extending the rights and privileges of use of the rancho to Workman. This document is in the collection of the Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum but was never submitted to the Land Commission to determine the validity of a Rowland and Workman claim to the land.
After Workman, as captain, and Rowland, as lieutenant, of an American and European military contingent helped Pio Pico defeat Governor Manuel Micheltorena in an armed standoff at Cahuenga Pass near Los Angeles in February 1845, Pico issued a new grant to Rancho La Puente. Made in July 1845, the grant extended the size of the rancho to the maximum allowed under Mexican land law, eleven square leagues, or . When Rowland submitted an affidavit claiming (unbelievably) that Workman was inadvertently left off the earlier grant, Pico officially added Workman as co-owner.
After the conquest of the Mexican department of Alta California by the United States during the Mexican-American War, the article of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which would have provided that Spanish and Mexican-era land grants be honored, was stricken at the insistence of President James K. Polk and Congress. With the onset of the Gold Rush and the arrival of tens of thousands of Americans to California, disputes over rancho lands became significant. Consequently, Congress passed legislation on 3 March 1851 requiring holders of Spanish and Mexican land titles to file a claim before a commission for adjudication. Approvals were automatically appealed by the federal government to the federal courts, as far as the United Supreme Court.