Rancho Los Gatos or Santa Rita was a 4424acres Mexican land grant in present-day Monterey County, California given in 1837 by Governor Juan B. Alvarado to José Trinidad Espinoza.[1] The grant was northwest of present-day Salinas, bounded on the north by Espinosa Lake and Rancho Bolsa de las Escorpinas of his brother Salvador Espinoza, and encompassed present-day Santa Rita.[2]
Jose Trinidad Espinoza (1794 - 1854), the son of Jose Cayetano Espinosa and Maria Rosa Tapia, married Maria Jacinta Archuleta (1796 -) in 1815. Espinoza was granted the one square league Rancho Los Gatos in 1837. His daughter, Fermina Espinoza, married Domingo Perez (1809 -).
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 claim for Rancho Los Gatos or Santa Rita was filed with the Public Land Commission in 1853,[3] [4] and the grant was patented to Fermina Espinoza de Perez and Domingo Perez in 1870.[5]
Jose Manuel Soto (1832 -), born in Peru, came to California in 1849. Soto married Maria Perez. Jose Manuel Soto established a town (known as Penacart, New Republic, Sotoville, and finally as Santa Rita) on part of Rancho Santa Rita in 1867.