At the request of the
Manuel Nieto heirs, Governor
José Figueroa in 1834, officially declared the
Rancho Los Nietos grant under
Mexican rule and ordered its partition into five smaller ranchos: Las Bolsas,
Los Alamitos,
Los Cerritos,
Los Coyotes, and
Santa Gertrudes. Maria Catarina Ruiz (widow of Jose Antonio Nieto, son of Manuel Nieto) received Las Bolsas. 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 Las Bolsas was filed by Ramón Yorba with the
Public Land Commission in 1852 and he received a US patent for an undivided half in 1874. A claim was filed by Maria Cleof'a Nieto Murillo and her husband Juan Jose Murillo with the Land Commission in 1852, but was rejected by the commission in 1855, because the claimants failed to connect themselves with the grant to Maria Catarina Ruiz. On appeal to the US District Court, this decree was reversed in 1857, and a US patent received for an undivided half in 1877.
Abel Stearns became the sole owner of the rancho by 1860, changing the name to Stearns Rancho, and adding it to his land empire. It did not become part of his financial remedy, as his six other ranchos did, as part of the 1868
Robinson Trust. However, the ownership of the grant was challenged later in 1886. ==References==