As is often the case in Southern California in June, the marine layer covers the coast like a shroud and aptly named "June Gloom".  Day after day of marine layer clouds gets me depressed but if you drive just a little ways you can find sun and 90 degree weather.  Such was the case this Sunday when I drove to "the Valley".

Many years ago, I had visited Los Encinos State Park, but as a child I really didn't even know what the significance was except that it was a "park".  Thirty years later, I made the journey again with a much deeper appreciation.  Of course, when I arrived I thought, "Geez, this park seemed larger when I was a kid."   It is a rather small park and you would hardly even know it was there.  Yet, this visit, I took the time to learn the history of the park and was amazed at how such a small park was such an integral part to the history of the San Fernando Valley.

Los Encinos State Historic Park, at the corner of Balboa and Ventura Blvd, in Encino California, was, until the late 19th Century, the hub of human habitation in the Southern San Fernando Valley. This early California rancho includes the original nine-room de la Osa Adobe, the two-story limestone Garnier House, the Reyes Hut, natural springs, and a lake (shaped like a Spanish guitar.) The park contains exhibits on early California ranch life.

Because of the ready source of water, Indians of the tribe now called the  "Gabrielino" or "Tongva" lived at the site of the park for hundreds, and perhaps thousands of years. Over a million artifacts have been found in the area, including European beads which may have been gifts from Gaspar de Portola, who, in 1769, led the first European expedition to reach the San Fernando Valley. This valuable location passed through many hands, going from Indian to Mission to Californio to French Basque control through the 19th Century. 

The site that is now known as Los Encinos was a "rancheria" (the Spanish term for an Indian village) of the tribe now called "Fernandeño", "Gabrielino" or Tongva, for several thousand years. In 1797, when the San Fernando Mission was completed, the site was largely evacuated.

The Missions did not use military force to bring Indians into the Mission, though they would use it to keep them there once they had converted and become "neophytes". However, the diseases the white men brought with them, and the destruction of the local food sources caused by the Mission cattle put the Indians in a desperate state. A significant majority of the Indians in California died within a few years of the arrival of the white man from a combination of disease and starvation. While the padres had the best of intentions and were horrified at the death they saw around them, their arrival was the root cause of this inadvertent genocide.

This disease and starvation did have the effect of forcing most of the Indians living anywhere near the Spanish settlements, including those in the San Fernando Valley, to place themselves under the Mission's protection and control.

When the Mexican government dissolved the California missions in 1834, three Mission Indian named Ramon, Francisco and Roque were given a 4,460 acre rancho in what was to become Rancho Los Encinos. They and their families made a marginal living grazing cattle and raising simple crops. On July 8th, 1845, Governor Pio Pico officially recognized their claim to the land, but by that time Francisco and Roque were dead. Their widows inherited the land and worked it for a few years with Ramon and his family until 1849 when Roman deserted them and his daughter Aguedo, and ran off to the gold fields. Unable to continue, they sold out to a Ranchero named Vincente de La Osa (or "de La Ossa").

Before California was conquered by the United States in 1847, and the Gold Rush began in 1849, cattle ranching had been the center of the entire "California" economy. The California "rancheros" raised huge herds of cattle on the vast grasslands of places like the San Fernando Valley.

The rancheros and their vaqueros (who were almost all California Indians) would gather the cattle once a year in a rodeo, and then slaughter hundreds of them. There was far more meat than they could eat, so most of the beef was left to be eaten by the local wildlife, while the rancheros saved the hides and tallow.

The hides and tallow would be traded to Yankee sea captains, who would sail around Cape Horn in ships loaded down with fabrics, clothes, household goods, liquor and any other items the Californios might want. The sea captains would trade their cargo for as many hides and barrels of tallow as their ships could hold, and then return home to sell them. The story of one of these voyages is told in the famous book "Two Years Before the Mast", by Richard Henry Dana.

The De La Osa rancho however, opened just as this phase in California history was coming to a close. When hundreds of thousands of gold miners came pouring into California, there were suddenly enough mouths to eat all the beef this fertile land could produce, and the meat became more valuable than the hides. Californio Rancheros like Vincente made a great deal of money driving their cattle to the gold fields and selling them there at inflated prices. For a few years, the Californios prospered under the Stars and Stripes.

In 1849, Vincente De La Osa built the adobe that still stands at Los Encinos. It is an excellent example of the basic California style of adobe.

It is long and narrow, with every room having one or more doors connecting to the outside, and many adjacent rooms not connecting to each other. Only in a climate as mild as Southern California, would anyone consider designing a house that way.

The cattle boom did not last, and when the miners went home or settled down, the demand for cattle declined. Vincente compensated by establishing a small vineyard, raising some sheep, and letting out rooms to travelers. There were many customers, since the Rancho was located along the primary road through California, El Camino Real, which in Encino corresponds to Ventura Blvd. Vincente died in 1861, leaving his widow Rita with 12 children, and pregnant with a thirteenth.

Rita managed to hold on for six more years, until 1867 when she conveyed the 4,460 acre rancho to her son-in-law, Sheriff James Thomson of Los Angeles and her daughter Manuela for $3,500. Manuela died in 1868 and the Rancho was sold to two Frenchmen, Eugene and Phillipe Garnier.

The Garniers were energetic builders, and added much to the Rancho. They built a stone-lined pond, in the shape of a Spanish guitar at the site of the spring; they built a two story limestone building to serve as a bunkhouse and they built a roadhouse across the road (Ventura Blvd.) which became the focal point of the local Basque community.

They also plunged with both feet into the Los Angeles sheep boom of the early 1870s. Three years of drought followed by two years of rain had combined with falling cattle prices to wipe out the cattle economy in Los Angeles. The sheep moved in to fill the void.

The Garniers spent freely on prize Spanish and French Merino breeding rams and borrowed heavily to finance the expansion of their herds and facilities. They had the reputation for producing the finest wool in Southern California.

Unfortunately, it wasn't good enough. The Los Angeles sheep boom was built on dreams and speculation, and the poor quality of most of the Southern California product, combined with the expenses of getting the product back east to the mills, made sheep ranching on the scale of the Garniers and their many sheep ranching neighbors, economically insupportable.

The market collapsed in 1873, and joined with a nation wide depression to ruin the Garniers and many like them.

They hung on until 1878, when their primary creditor, a Basque named Gaston Oxarart, purchased the ranch at a Sheriff's auction. He continued to raise sheep, but like most landowners in the Valley, he moved more and more into agriculture. In 1886, Gaston died, and the ranch passed to his nephew Simon Gless. In 1889, Gless sold the rancho to his father in law, Domingo Amestoy. This was the last time the 4,460 acre ranch was sold as a whole. In the coming years, it would slowly be taken apart, a piece at a time.

In 1916, 1,170 acres of land were sold from the Rancho. This parcel was subdivided and became the city of Encino.

In 1949, through the efforts of Mrs. Mary Stuart in mobilizing the local community to save the buildings from developers, the last remaining parcel of land, containing the De La Osa adobe, Garnier House and spring were purchased by the State of California, and the Los Encinos State Historic Park was created.

Los Encinos is one of the best hidden parks in Los Angeles. Even though it is located on Ventura Blvd, at one of the busiest intersections in Southern California, thousands of people pass its walls and trees every day without noticing the small brown State Parks sign that announces its presence.

Take the 101 Ventura Freeway to the Balboa Offramp. Go South on Balboa to Moorpark (one block before Ventura Blvd--Look for the new fire station and DWP building). Turn left onto Moorpark and park on the street.