I. STEWART RANCH 

 Former Olds Ranch 

 (Golden Gate National Recreation Area) 



1. Description 



The Stewart Ranch, historically known as the Olds Ranch, is an 890-acre 

 parcel in the geographic center of the Olema Valley. It consists of rolling, 

 grassy hills with wooded gulches, facing the virgin forests of Inverness Ridge 

 across Olema Creek to the west. It is bounded on the north by the Truttman 

 Ranch, on the east at the crest of Bolinas Ridge at the Samuel P. Taylor State 

 Park boundary, on the south by the Lupton Ranch and Five Brooks, and on the 

 west by Olema Creek. The ranch complex, headquarters for the Stewart's beef 

 cattle ranch and horse boarding and breeding facility, is the largest in the 

 Olema Valley and consists of structures old and new. The Stewart family has 

 owned the ranch since 1924. 



2. History of Stewart Ranch 



Rafael Garcia reportedly used the Stewart Ranch site as a remote stock 

 corral serving the southern part of his rancho; according to the memories of 

 Nelson Olds, Jr. and Boyd Stewart, Garcia called the small knoll that would 

 become the Olds and Stewart Ranch "Cabristo Hill," and kept two tame steers 

 here for meat. Garcia sold 4,366 acres of his rancho to Daniel and Nelson Olds 

 on September 25, 1856. Victor Post, who had purchased much of Garcia's land 

 early in 1856, quitclaimed 92 acres of it to the Olds family on the same day as 

 the Garcia sale. 102 



According to recollections of Nelson Olds, Jr. and a letter by Jeremiah 

 Olds, their father moved the family into an unfinished squatters cabin near the 

 site of the current ranch house on Christmas Eve of 1856. Nelson Olds paid 

 the squatter, possibly Peter Boucher, $100 for the cabin after convincing the 

 man that he owned title. A storm lashed the cabin while the family pinned 



102 Deeds, Book C, pp. 66 and 68, MCRO; interview with Boyd Stewart. 



211 



