ARCHIVED REPORTS LEC APPLICATION FOR CERTIFICATION

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5.3 CULTURAL RESOURCES 5.3.1.4 Historic Setting In 1542,Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo explored the California coast by ship. Much of the early exploration of California was conducted this way and the interior of California,including the San Joaquin Valley,remained unexplored by Europeans until the beginning of the Spanish Period. The Spanish period spans the years from 1769 to 1822 in California beginning with the founding of the first mission,the Mission San Diego de Alcala in 1769. It was not until March of 1772 that the first formal European expedition,led by Pedro Fages,entered the northern San Joaquin Valley. Fages went in search of the first Europeans to actually enter the San Joaquin Valley,Spanish deserters. The other purpose of the Fages expedition was to find an overland route to Point Reyes and the company kept to the shoreline until they reached the mouth of the San Joaquin River and first observed the valley (Smith,2004). Shortly after the Fages expedition returned to Monterey,Father Francisco Garces entered the San Joaquin Valley and made the first scientific observations of the valley,which included native villages,wide rivers,large tule swamps, and huge herds of tule elk. In 1821, Mexico gained independence from Spain and in 1848 the United States formally obtained California in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (Cleland, 1941: xiii). The period from 1821-1848 is referred to as the Mexican Rancho Period. It was during this period that large tracts of land termed ranchos were granted by the various Mexican Governors of Alta California,usually to individuals who had worked in the service of the Mexican government. In 1833,eleven years after gaining independence from Spain,the Mexican government's Secularization Act changed missions into civil parishes, and those natives who had inhabited regions adjacent to a Spanish Period mission were to obtain half of all mission possessions, including land. However,in most instances,this did not occur, and the Secularization Act resulted in the transfer of large mission tracts to politically prominent individuals. The closest rancho to the LEC project area is the Rancho de los Franceses situated on and around present day Stockton. Rancho de los Franceses was granted by Governor Micheltorena to William Gulnac,a native of New York on June 13,1844. The rancho was comprised of eleven square leagues,or 48,747.03 acres. In 1845,shortly before the homestead deadline and after constructing several houses,corrals,planting a peach orchard, and raising several hundred cattle on the land,Gulnac sold the rancho to Captain Charles M. Weber for a $60 grocery bill Gulnac owed the Weber Grocery Store in San Jose (Smith,2004: 153-154). Following the end of hostilities between Mexico and the United States in January of 1847, the United States officially obtained California from Mexico through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on February 2,1848 (Cleland,1941: xiii). Thus,the American Period begins in 1848. In 1850, California was accepted into the Union of the United States primarily due to the population increase created by the Gold Rush of 1849. In April of 1848, gold was first discovered in the San Joaquin Valley at Captain Sutter's now famous saw mill near present day Sacramento. Gold was never found in great quantities in the San Joaquin Valley, although mining in the adjacent foothills was prolific. The southern mines stretched from the Mokelumne River to the Kern River and Stockton became the main supply city for miners headed to these southern mines (Smith,2004: 179). SACI3713221082330008(LEC_5.3_CULTU RAL.DOC) 5.3-5