The property rights for Montaña de Oro State Park land area changed hands several times after California became a territory of the United States. Part of the park was the
Rancho Cañada de los Osos that
Victor Linares had been granted on December 1, 1842 by Governor
Juan B. Alvarado. The rancho lay west of
San Luis Obispo in the
Los Osos Valley. Victor Linares sold his rancho to James Scott and John Wilson who also bought the adjacent
Rancho Pecho y Islay in the
Irish Hills to the south of their Los Osos rancho and combined them in a new 32,431 acre grant,
Rancho Cañada de los Osos y Pecho y Islay from Governor
Pio Pico in 1845. It was used mostly for grazing sheep until 1892, when Alden B. Spooner, Jr., leased the land he later purchased around Islay Creek. He brought in dairy cattle, hogs and other agriculture. His two sons founded the Pecho Ranch & Stock Co., and built a ranch house, a complex of barns, a creamery, stables, sheds, and a waterwheel for power. On the south bluff of Spooner's Cove they utilized a warehouse with a long chute that led down to a wharf and a loading boom to service coastal steamers. The land just to the north was owned by Alexander S. Hazard, who also raised crops and maintained a dairy. Hoping to cash in on California's growing need for timber, he planted hundreds of eucalyptus trees, turning Hazard Canyon into a prospective lumber farm. Unfortunately, eucalyptus proved unsatisfactory for commercial use. In the early 1940s, a flood scoured Hazard Canyon, and in 1947 a grass fire burned up the coast from Diablo Canyon, destroying much of what had been the Hazard dairy buildings. However, Hazard's legacy, the stands of eucalyptus trees, remains. Rancher Oliver C. Field bought the land in the early 1940s, but sold it to Irene McAllister about ten years later. In 1965 the property was purchased by the State of California for a state park, and it was decided to keep the name McAllister had given it: "Montaña de Oro". On April 24, 1965, Rancho Montaña de Oro was dedicated as a California State Park after it was purchased out of the Rancho Montaña de Oro, Inc. bankruptcy proceeding under the Park acquisition program that Governor Edmund G. "Pat" Brown had launched and managed to fund. ==Gallery==