Rancho Temescal was a farming outpost of Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, one of the 21 Franciscan missions established in California by Spain during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The Mission was located on the coast where Oceanside, California is today. The Rancho was settled in 1819 by Leandro Serrano, and became the first non-native settlement within the boundaries of what would become Riverside County, California.
Although Serrano applied for a land grant with Governor José María de Echeandía, during the Mexican administration of California, a grant was never issued. The only supporting evidence of his claim was a paper from the San Luis Rey Mission permitting him to occupy the land for grazing. After Serrano's death in 1852, his wife, Josefa Montalva de Serrano, continued to pursue the claim, now under the administration of the United States, but the claim was ultimately rejected by the US Supreme Court in 1866.
The grant claim extended along the Temescal Valley south of present-day Corona and encompassed El Cerrito and Lee Lake. At the time, Rancho Temescal was a part of San Bernardino County. Riverside County was created by the California Legislature in 1893 by taking land from both San Bernardino and San Diego County.
History
Rancho Temescal has two Native American historic sites within the grant claim borders.
Rancho Temescal
Leandro Serrano (? –1852) was the son of one of the soldiers who came to California with Junípero Serra in 1769. Leandro Serrano was mayordomo of San Antonio de Pala Asistencia for the Mission of San Luis Rey. Serrano received the written permission of the priest of the Mission of San Luis Rey, or of the military commander of San Diego, to occupy the five square league Rancho Temescal (Mission of San Luis Rey land), and took possession in about 1818 or 1819. The Serrano Boulder (California Historical Landmark (#185), marks the site of the first house erected by Leandro Serrano about May 1824. By 1826 he had in addition to the adobe house, a garden with fruit trees, considerable cattle and horses. From 1828, Leandro was mayordomo of Mission San Juan Capistrano. In the early 1830s, another home was erected upon a knoll just above the first site, which commanded a far-reaching view, because of threatening trouble with the Mission Indians when the Missions in California were being closed. The ruins of this second adobe were still standing during the 1880s. In the 1840s Leandro built his third and last adobe on the road between San Diego and Los Angeles, which later became part of the Southern Emigrant Trail during the California Gold Rush. The Serrano family occupied the adobe until 1898. The site of this third adobe is on the northeast corner of I-15 and Old Temescal Road, 8 miles Southeast of Corona. Leandro continued to reside there with his family until his death in 1852. After his wife, Maria Presentacion Yorba (1791–1835) died in 1835, he married Josefa Montalva. His son, Jose Antonio Serrano, was grantee of Rancho Pauma.
Disputed Grant Claim
With the cession of California to the United States following the Mexican–American War, the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo provided that the land grants would be honored. As required by the Land Act of 1851, a five square league claim for Rancho Temescal was filed by his widow, Josefa Montalva de Serrano, with the Public Land Commission in 1852, The claim was rejected by the Commission in 1855.
On an appeal to the US District Court the 1855 Commission ruling was reversed in 1859, which confirmed four square leagues. However, on appeal, the US Supreme Court ruled in 1866, that Leandro Serrano, had no title, legal or equitable, to the land. "Long-continued and undisturbed possession of land in California, whilst that country belonged to Spain or Mexico, under a simple permission to occupy it from a priest of an adjoining mission or a local military commander, did not create an equitable claim to the land against either of the governments of those countries, nor is a claim based upon such possession entitled to confirmation" under the Land Act of 1851.