My family and I had the most fun on Sunday August 21st, 2011. We dressed in our best play clothes and headed to Long Beach to play with mud. Mud Mania event at Rancho Los Cerritos happens only once a year. So we got there early enough to be in front of the line. With our money in hand and our towels in another. We signed up for all the events. Here is a list of what we did that day:
Shell decorating
Paint a Clay wiggles
Make your own fossil
Make a nature crown
Plant a tree with Tree Lovers
Make a clay house
Learn about rocks and stones
Paint your own t-shirt
Crush seashells to coat and cover an Adobe Oven
Race to make a brick from mud
Throw tennis balls with mud
Run and walk in the mud
The entire family got to participate in all the events and got creative. The day flew by so fast that when we finally got to seat under a large tree to listen to live music. Our feet hurt so bad from walking all day long. As we sat there, we enjoyed watching the butterflies that flew above us. There was the yellow Mimosa Butterfly, Monarch Butterfly and others I had never seen before. The beauty of the ranch is in the fruit trees and rose bushes. It is like a little forest in the middle of a large city. You can feel the history that once lived there. This place holds secrets from the past. Everyone should go there to sit and listen to the wind run through the trees.
http://www.rancholoscerritos.org/visitor.html
Important Dates
| 2000-3000 BC | N |
| 500-1769 | Tongva
people (Gabrielino Indians) live on lands later known as Rancho Los Cerritos;
village of Tibahangna said to be north of present ranch house. |
| 1769 | First
Spanish settlement in California at San Diego |
| 1771 | Mission
San Gabriel founded |
| 1781 | El Pueblo
de Los Angeles founded |
| 1784-90 | Spanish
soldier Manuel Nieto receives land encompassing about 300,000 acres; this is reduced to 167,000
acres |
| 1804 | Manuel
Nieto dies; his land is inherited jointly by his four surviving children |
| 1821 | Mexico achieves independence from Spain in
1821, California comes under |
| 1834 | Mission
lands are secularized and the missions are closed |
| 1834 | Nieto’s land is formally divided into smaller ranchos. Daughter Manuela de Cota receives the 27,000-acre portion known as Rancho Los Cerritos |
| 1834-35 | Manuela
and husband Guillermo Cota build a small adobe on the Rancho Los Cerritos for
their family. |
| 1843 | John
Temple purchases Rancho Los Cerritos from the Cota family in December 1843 for
$3,000 |
| 1844 | John
Temple builds the present two-story Monterey-style adobe as headquarters for his
cattle-ranching operations, and stocks the land with as many as 15,000 head of
cattle |
| 1846-48 | Mexican-American War |
| 1848 | California becomes a U.S. territory |
| 1848 | Gold is
discovered in northern California |
| 1849 | The Gold
Rush begins |
| 1849 | Benjamin
Flint comes to California to seek his fortune in the gold fields |
| 1850 | California
becomes a state |
| 1851 | Thomas
Flint and Lewellyn Bixby arrive in the gold fields |
| 1852-53 | John
Temple successfully defends his title to Rancho Los Cerritos before the U.S.
Land Commission |
| 1852 | Jotham and
Marcellus Bixby, brothers of Lewellyn Bixby, arrive in the gold fields |
| 1853 | Benjamin
and Thomas Flint, and Lewellyn Bixby, form Flint, Bixby & Co. and bring
sheep to California |
| 1861-65 | Civil
War |
| 1862-64 | Period of
severe floods and droughts in southern California that devastate the cattle
industry |
| 1866 | John
Temple sells Rancho Los Cerritos to Flint, Bixby & Co. |
| 1866 | Jotham
Bixby and his family move to Rancho Los Cerritos to manage Flint, Bixby &
Company’s sheep ranching operations |
| 1869 | Jotham
Bixby buys a half interest in Rancho Los Cerritos and forms J. Bixby &
Company |
| 1874 | Jotham
Bixby buys an interest in Rancho Palos Verdes |
| 1877 | Reverend
George Hathaway, Jotham Bixby’s father-in-law, and sister-in-law Martha Hathaway
move to Ra |
| 1878 | John
Bixby, a cousin of Jotham and Lewellyn Bixby’s, leases Rancho Los Alamitos |
| 1881 | Jotham
Bixby and his family move to Los Angeles |
| 1881 | J. Bixby
& Company, together with John Bixby and I.W. Hellman, purchase Rancho Los
Alamitos |
| 1881 | Jotham
Bixby provides lease with option to buy of 4000 acres to William Willmore for
the founding of a town, Willmore City, and agricultural community |
| 1884 | William Willmore is unsuccessful in promoting his town, but the Long Beach Land and Water Company purchases his option and renames the town Long Beach |
| 1884-85 | Jotham
Bixby family moves back to Long Beach and builds a home on Ocean |
| 1887 | Long Beach
is incorporated |
| 1897 | 7,000
acres of Rancho Los Cerritos lands sold to Senator from Montana; later becomes Lakewood |
| 1906 | 1440 acres
of Rancho Los Cerritos lands sold; City of Bellflower founded |
| 1930-31 | Rancho Los
Cerritos is remodeled by Llewellyn Bixby, Sr. for a family residence |
| 1942 | Llewellyn
Bixby, Sr. dies |
| 1955 | Rancho Los
Cerritos is acquired by the City of Long Beach
and opened to the public as a museum |
| 1970 | Rancho Los
Cerritos is placed on the National Register of Historic Properties and is also
designated a National Historic Landmark |
| 1979 | Rancho Los
Cerritos is designated a City of Long Beach Historical Landmark |
| 1988 | Rancho Los
Cerritos is designated State Historic Landmark No. 978 |
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