Rancho Las Encinitas was a 4434 acres (17.9 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 San Diego County, California

San Diego County, California

San Diego County is a large county located in the southwestern corner of the US state of California. Hence, San Diego County is also located in the southwestern corner of the 48 contiguous United States. Its county seat and largest city is San Diego. Its population was about 2,813,835 in the 2000...

 given in 1842 by Governor Juan Alvarado to Andrés Ybarra. The grant was named “Los Encinitos” which means " little oaks" , but was later misspelled as “Las Encinitas”. The grant extended along the Pacific coast south from San Elijo Lagoon

San Elijo Lagoon

San Elijo Lagoon is one of the largest coastal wetlands in San Diego County, California, USA. It is the location of the San Elijo Lagoon Ecological Reserve....

 to Batiquitos Lagoon

Batiquitos Lagoon

The Batiquitos Lagoon is a coastal wetland in southern Carlsbad, California. It is run by the California Department of Fish and Game as a nature reserve....

, and encompassed present day Leucadia, Encinitas

Encinitas, California

Encinitas is a coastal beach city in San Diego County, California. Located within Southern California, it is approximately north of San Diego in North County and about south of Los Angeles. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 59,518, up from 58,014 at the 2000 census. Encinitas is...

, Cardiff-by-the-Sea and Olivenhain, California

Olivenhain, California

Olivenhain is a rural community located in North County, San Diego, California is the east most portion of the coastal town of Encinitas and borders the west portion of Rancho Santa Fe....

.

History

Andrés Ybarra (1788–) lived in Los Angeles in 1819. He took part in the revolt against Manuel Victoria

Manuel Victoria

Manuel Victoria was Governor of the Mexican territory of Alta California from January 1831 to 6 December 1831.The revolt leading to his twelve month abbreviated tenure and subsequent exile were due to his nullifying the order of his predecessor, José María de Echeandía, to secularize the missions...

 in 1831, and in 1836 was juez de campo at San Diego

San Diego, California

San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round...

. Prior to receiving the one square league Rancho Las Encinitas in 1842 he owned a store in San Diego. Ybarra constructed an adobe house on the northeast corner of his rancho where he and his wife, Francisca Juana Moreno (1790–1883), lived for 18 years.

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 Las Encinitas 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 1852, 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 Andrés Ybarra in 1871.

Ybarra sold the Rancho Las Encinitas in 1860 to San Diego merchants, Joseph S. Mannasse and Marcus Schiller. Mannasse and Schiller converted the adobe ranch house into a stage coach station. Mannasse and Schiller ran into financial difficulties and lost the rancho to foreclosure. The rancho was then sold in 1880 to the brothers, Frank and Warren Kimball, who at the time owned Rancho de la Nación

Rancho de la Nación

Rancho de la Nación was a Mexican land grant in present day southern San Diego County, California given in 1845 by Governor Pío Pico to John Forster...

. The Kimball brothers hoped to resell the rancho to an immigrant colony. In 1884, Theodore Pinther and Conrad Stroebel purchased the rancho from the Kimbles for a German colony that would be named Olivenhain (olive grove in German).

Historic sites of the Rancho

• Stagecoach Community Park. The remnants of the Andrés Ybarra adobe and former stagecoach stop.