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Rinconada de los Gatos

The 6,631-acre Mexican land grant of 1840 that covered present-day Los Gatos, Monte Sereno and part of Campbell, and gave the town its name.

Governor Juan Alvarado granted the rancho to two brothers-in-law, José María Hernández and Sebastián Fabián Peralta. Rinconada means corner: the corner formed where the gap between El Sereno and El Sombroso mountains narrows, and the cats were the cougars of the hills. Los Gatos Creek ran through the middle of it.

The grantees built an adobe house on what is now a lawn of Vasona Lake County Park. In 1853 James Alexander Forbes bought about 2,000 acres of the grant and built Forbes Mill there.

Sources

Questions people ask

Where was the Rinconada de los Gatos?

It covered most of today’s Los Gatos and Monte Sereno and about a third of Campbell, with small parts of San Jose and Saratoga.

Who owned the rancho?

José María Hernández and Sebastián Fabián Peralta, who received it from Governor Juan Alvarado in 1840.

Related terms

  • Los GatosAn incorporated town of about 33,500 people in Santa Clara County, in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains just southwest of San Jose. The name is Spanish for “the cats.”
  • El Sereno and El SombrosoThe two mountains on either side of Los Gatos Creek’s canyon above town: El Sereno to the southwest and El Sombroso to the southeast. Both are now open space preserves.
  • Vasona Lake County ParkA county park around Vasona Reservoir in the middle of town, with paddle boats, picnic lawns, the creek trail and, each December, the Fantasy of Lights.
  • Forbes MillThe stone flour mill on Los Gatos Creek, begun in the 1850s by James Alexander Forbes, around which the town grew. Its 1880 stone annex survives as a state historical landmark.

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