H. LUPTON RANCH 



Former Parsons Ranch 



(Golden Gate National Recreation Area) 



1. Description 



The Lupton Ranch, historically known as the Parsons Ranch, has been in 

 the same family for its entire existence. The old ranch complex is not visible to 

 the public from Highway One; hikers glimpse it from the Bolinas Ridge Trail or 

 through the trees on the Stewart Trail, but otherwise the ranch is practically 

 unknown to the public. The owner has built a new house by the highway, and 

 sold two historic buildings across the highway to other parties. The 836-acre 

 ranch is, like its northern neighbors, mostly rolling grassland with wooded 

 gulches. The historic ranch complex, consisting now of a house, barn and water 

 tower, was located on the grassy ridge about half a mile east of Five Brooks. It 

 is reached by a narrow dirt ranch road. 



2. History of the Lupton Ranch 



Not long after the pioneering Olds family divided their property in 1863, 

 Daniel Olds, Jr. sold two parcels that would become the Lupton Ranch. A tiny 

 part of James McMillan Shafter's Rancho Punta de los Reyes was added to the 

 ranch as well. The three transactions that led to the current (since 1888) 

 boundaries of the Lupton Ranch occurred as detailed below: 



First and foremost, on October 28, 1865, Daniel Olds, Jr. sold 800 acres to 

 Charles S. Parsons, a thirty-year-old native of Massachusetts who had been 

 working for his brother-in-law, Levi K. Baldwin, on the successful Baldwin and 

 Karner dairy (now Truttman Ranch) only a few miles north of his new 

 property. It is possible that Baldwin, known for his generosity in helping young 

 men get a start in business, loaned his wife's younger brother the money to 

 make the purchase; Parsons had been managing a Shafter Ranch leased to 

 Baldwin before the purchase. 85 



85 Deeds Book E, p. 415 and 440, MCRO; Population Schedules of the 8th and 9th U. S. 

 Censuses, 1860 and 1870; E. S. Harrison, History of Santa Cruz County. California (San Francisco: 

 Pacific Press Publishing Co., 1892), p. 333. 



195 



