K. DeSOUZA RANCH 

 Beebe Ranch 

 (Golden Gate National Recreation Area) 



1. Description 



This ranch, locally known as the Beebe Ranch for the last tenants who 

 were there between 1950 and 1976, is an almost-pie-shaped parcel surrounding 

 a gulch that carries Cheno Creek directly through the town of Olema. Reached 

 by an access road at the foot of Sir Francis Drake Highway and Highway One, 

 the ranch is composed of steep hills and very little flat land. It is mostly grassy, 

 with some hardwoods growing on the south side of the gulch. It is bounded on 

 the north by Drake Highway, on the east by the Ferro/Mclsaac Ranch, on the 

 south by the Truttman Ranch and on the west by Highway One at Olema. 

 There are no remaining ranch structures, and the land is not open for grazing. 



2. History of the DeSouza Ranch 



The original route from Point Reyes to San Rafael, the Old Olema Trail, 

 ascended a flat ridge easterly from Olema to the summit of Bolinas Ridge, 

 where it then led down to the Lagunitas Creek valley and on through the San 

 Geronimo Valley to San Rafael. This route from the village to the ridge served 

 as a boundary line when Rafael Garcia sold part of his property in the Olema 

 Valley to Nelson and Daniel Olds in 1856. After Garcia's death and the family's 

 subdivision of his lands this line became the south boundary of the 300.66 acre 

 ranch of Garcia's daughter Maria Dolores Garcia Hurtado. With the northwest 

 boundary being the newly built county road from Olema to San Rafael, the 

 shape of the ranch was formed by transportation patterns in the area. 



No record has been found of Mrs. Hurtado 's use of the land. Hurtado 

 mortgaged the property to James McMillan Shafter and defaulted; the mortgage 

 was foreclosed on August 9, 1871 and ordered for sale by the county sheriff. 

 Shafter purchased the ranch for $7576.13 at the sheriffs sale on September 11. 

 Nevertheless, Hurtado and her husband sold the property in March of the 

 following year to John Wright and George Sanders for $8500, and soon after the 

 Hurtados borrowed $13,000 from Wright and Saunders and leased the land from 



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