JamesStep@... wrote:
> > Is this a public road?
>
> No, it's a private road.
>
> It's owned by Pebble Beach Resorts (www.pebblebeach.com), which owns a
> huge amount of property in that area with golf courses and resorts. I
> think Clint Eastwood, who lives in nearby Carmel, is part owner of the
> company.
I suppose the Pebble Beach Resorts bunch bought the land from the Del
Montes (of vegetable canning fame) for a nickel an acre after the
Mexican land grantees were forced out...
Lots of California land is now owned by big land companies because of
the way the Spanish territory of Alta California was developed in the
late 1700's. The Spanish government became aware that the Russians or
the British might colonize Alta California first, so they sent out
people to inhabit and improve the land. The Spanish had already
attempted to colonize Baja California, that didn't work well, so they
put the development of California into the hands of the Franciscan
order of the Catholic church, since the corrupt Dominicans had stolen
everything they could steal in Baja...
The first explorers wound up getting large land grants in northern and
southern California. There were 80 Spanish land grants given to
Spaniards who were loyal to the king, and a further 1000 land grants
were given to Mexican citizens after Mexico became independant from
Spain.
During the secularization period, when the Catholic church was in
disfavor, the vast land tracts held by the missions were broken up and
wealthy Mexican citizens were able to buy up mission land dirt cheap. I
went to school with an Arnaz kid whose great grandfather had bought
mission land. His rancho still exists on the road to Ojai, just as it
has since 1846...
The United States of America had their eye on California too, believing
it was Manifest Destiny that America would spread from the Atlantic to
the Pacific ocean. After the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ceded half of
all territory claimed by Mexico, the Yankee lawyers went to work on the
land titles of all the Spanish and Mexican land grantees. The Mexicans
and Spaniards thought that their land grant was in perpetuity, a matter
of respect and tradition and honor that the Yankee lawyers laughed
at...
The lawyers posted notices in the English langauge newspapers in San
Francisco, demanding that the Spanish and Mexican land grantees come to
court and prove their titles. Of course, being unable to read English,
the land grantees knew nothing of this matter and lost their lands....
Also, the economy of the state changed. Mexicans who did have good
title to their lands weren't making any money off of the land, so they
often sold dirt cheap to wealthy east coast Yankees, and much of the
land in California fell into the hands of rich Republicans...
So far as I know, there never was a lot of land in California available
for to ordinary citiizens for homesteading, though a family friend
homesteaded land way the hell out in the Cuyama valley as late as 1925.
I remember that he was always driving out there in the 1950's...
And, what happened in California also happened in New Mexico. The rich
Republicans wound up owning vast tracts of land in New Mexico by the
same tactics as the Yankees used in California. Some of the olde
Spanish families around Santa Fe had lived there since the early 16th
century, but the rich Yankees screwed them out of their land grants...
Somebody once said that Jane F****a was one of the biggest landowners
in New Mexico...
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