Temple's Ranch

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Temple's Ranch, was the ranch and a home of F. P. F. Temple, a wealthy land owner in Los Angeles County, with large business and land holdings of thousands of acres in Madera County and Fresno County including this ranch in Fresno County near the Merced County border.

Francisco P. Temple served on the first Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in 1852.

Merced County, California County in California, United States

Merced County, is a county located in the northern San Joaquin Valley section of the Central Valley, in the U.S. state of California.

Temple's Ranch Station

Temple's Ranch was a swing station in the First Division of the Butterfield Overland Mail in Fresno County, California. It was located 13 miles east southeast of Lone Willow Station and 15 miles northwest of Firebaugh's Ferry northwest of what is now Dos Palos. [1] [2] The station at Temple's Ranch was located on the west bank of the San Joaquin River, at the home of F. T. F. Temple, the original owner of the property, who was living there in 1858. Temple sold the ranch in 1866.

Butterfield Overland Mail

Butterfield Overland Mail was a stagecoach service in the United States operating from 1858 to 1861. It carried passengers and U.S. Mail from two eastern termini, Memphis, Tennessee, and St. Louis, Missouri, to San Francisco, California. The routes from each eastern terminus met at Fort Smith, Arkansas, and then continued through Indian Territory (Oklahoma), Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Mexico, and California ending in San Francisco. On March 3, 1857, Congress authorized the U.S. postmaster general, Aaron Brown, to contract for delivery of the U.S. mail from Saint Louis to San Francisco. Prior to this, U.S. Mail bound for the Far West had been delivered by the San Antonio and San Diego Mail Line since June 1857.

Fresno County, California County in California

Fresno County, officially the County of Fresno, is a county located in the central portion of the U.S. state of California. As of January 1, 2018, the population was 1,007,229. The county seat is Fresno, the fifth-largest city in California.

Lone Willow Station, was a former settlement in Merced County, California, located near present-day Los Banos. Lone Willow Station was a changing or swing station along the First Division route of the Butterfield Overland Mail, from 1858 to 1861. Lone Willow Station was located on the west bank of Mud Slough, 18 miles east of the St. Louis Ranch Station and 13 miles northwest of Temple's Ranch Station. This station consisted of a house for the hostler and a large barn for the relay horses and storage of their barley and hay.

This section of the mail road along the San Joaquin River and over the plain, west through Lone Willow Station to St. Luis Ranch and Pacheco Pass was described as one of the best for making fast time on the route. The fifteen miles between Firebaugh's Ferry and Temple's Ranch was frequently driven in one hour and twelve minutes. [3]

Rancho San Luis Gonzaga was a 48,821-acre (197.57 km2) Mexican land grant in the Diablo Range, in present-day Santa Clara County and Merced County, California given in 1843 by Governor Manuel Micheltorena to Juan Perez Pacheco and José Maria Mejía. The grant was bounded by Francisco Pacheco's Rancho Ausaymas y San Felipe on the west, the San Joaquin River and San Joaquin Valley on the east, and Los Baños Creek on the south.

Pacheco Pass

Pacheco Pass, elevation 1,368 ft (417 m), is a low mountain pass located in the Diablo Range in southeastern Santa Clara County, California. It is the main route through the hills separating the Santa Clara Valley and the Central Valley.

Coordinates: 37°01′27″N120°32′34″W / 37.02417°N 120.54278°W / 37.02417; -120.54278

Geographic coordinate system Coordinate system

A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are often chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position and two or three of the numbers represent a horizontal position; alternatively, a geographic position may be expressed in a combined three-dimensional Cartesian vector. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation. To specify a location on a plane requires a map projection.

  1. Historic Spots in California, Third Edition, p.202
  2. List of Stations from New York Times, October 14 1858, Itinerary of the Route
  3. Roscoe Platt Conkling, Margaret Badenoch Conkling, BUTTERFIELD OVERLAND MAIL, 1858-1869, The American Trail Series, Volume 4, Arthur H. Clark, Glendale, 1947, p.294

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