Rancho Laguna de la Merced

You are standing on land that once belonged to one of the earliest private estates in the region, a sprawling two thousand two hundred acre property known as Rancho Laguna de la Merced. In eighteen thirty-five, the Mexican government granted this area to a local militia corporal named Jose Antonio Galindo. The rancho took its name from the nearby lake, which Spanish explorers had dedicated to Our Lady of Mercy. At the time, the landscape was a rugged expanse of rolling dunes and live oaks, far removed from the bustling settlement of Yerba Buena.