Rancho Cañada de los Capitancillos was a 1110 acres (4.5 km²) Mexican land grant

Ranchos of California

The Spanish, and later the Méxican government encouraged settlement of territory now known as California by the establishment of large land grants called ranchos, from which the English ranch is derived. Devoted to raising cattle and sheep, the owners of the ranchos attempted to pattern themselves...

 in present day Santa Clara County, California

Santa Clara County, California

Santa Clara County is a county located at the southern end of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. As of 2010 it had a population of 1,781,642. The county seat is San Jose. The highly urbanized Santa Clara Valley within Santa Clara County is also known as Silicon Valley...

 given in 1842 by Governor Juan B. Alvarado to Justo Larios. The name means the Valley of the Little Captains. The grant was south of present day San Jose

San Jose, California

San Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...

 and bounded on the west by the Guadalupe River

Guadalupe River (California)

The Guadalupe River is a short river in California whose headwater creeks originate in the Santa Cruz Mountains near the summit of Loma Prieta and Mount Umunhum. The river mainstem now begins on the Santa Clara Valley floor at the northern end of Lake Almaden, which is fed by Los Alamitos Creek and...

.

History

Justo Larios (1808–), son of Jose Larios, was a military artilleryman at the Presidio of San Francisco

Presidio of San Francisco

The Presidio of San Francisco is a park on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula in San Francisco, California, within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area...

. Larios was granted the one square league Rancho Los Capitancillos

Rancho Los Capitancillos

Rancho Los Capitancillos was a Mexican land grant in present day Santa Clara County, California given in 1842 by Governor Juan B. Alvarado to Justo Larios. Los Capitancillos means the Little Captains in Spanish...

 in 1842. Larios sold the whole grant to Grove C. Cook (–1852) in 1845. In 1848 Cook sold the northern part of the grant (Rancho Cañada de los Capitancillos) to the Guadalupe Mining Company. Cook died in 1852, and Charles Fossat bought the other three-quarters of the grant in a sheriff's sale.

With the cession

Mexican Cession

The Mexican Cession of 1848 is a historical name in the United States for the region of the present day southwestern United States that Mexico ceded to the U.S...

 of California to the United States following the Mexican-American War, the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is the peace treaty, largely dictated by the United States to the interim government of a militarily occupied Mexico City, that ended the Mexican-American War on February 2, 1848...

 provided that the land grants would be honored. As required by the Land Act of 1851, a claim for Rancho Cañada de los Capitancillos was filed with the Public Land Commission

Public Land Commission

The Public Land Commission, a former agency of the United States government, was created following the admission of California as a state in 1850 . The Commission's purpose was to determine the validity of prior Spanish and Mexican land grants in California.California Senator William M...

 in 1853, and the grant was patented

Land patent

A land patent is a land grant made patent by the sovereign lord over the land in question. To make a such a grant “patent”, such a sovereign lord must document the land grant, securely sign and seal the document and openly publish the same to the public for all to see...

to Guadalupe Mining Company in 1871.