U. CHEDA RANCH 



(Golden Gate National Recreation Area) 



1. Description 



Cheda Ranch is a large parcel of land adjacent to Samuel P. Taylor Park 

 on Lagunitas Creek, east of Tocaloma. The ranch complex is about 1/2 mile up 

 a dirt road from Sir Francis Drake Highway, sitting in a valley that drains to 

 Lagunitas Creek. The ranch is mostly grassland with forested areas in the 

 gulches. The former owners negotiated a reservation of use and occupancy, and 

 rent the buildings and pastures to various tenants. 



2. History of Cheda Ranch 



The first known non-Indian resident of the area that would become the 

 Cheda Ranch was Marin pioneer Capt. Oliver Allen, a well-known engineer and 

 inventor who had arrived in California with the Gold Rush. Allen came to 

 Marin County in 1852 and rebuilt two sawmills at Dogtown near Bolinas. He 

 then settled with his family in a house on the creek draining the Cheda Ranch, 

 probably renting the property from Rancho Nicasio owner William J. Miller. 

 While here he was employed by Samuel P. Taylor to aid with the engineering 

 and machinery of Taylor's Pioneer Paper Mill, the first paper mill on the west 

 coast. Allen also reportedly began his first experiments with dairy farming on 

 this site; eventually his inventions for butter churns and other dairy equipment 

 became used on dairies throughout California. Allen and his family moved to a 

 Shatter dairy on Point Reyes in 1859. 225 



In one of the first transactions upon breaking up his holdings in Rancho 

 Nicasio, William J. Miller sold Gaudenzio Cheda and Carlo Solari 932 acres of 

 prime land draining into Lagunitas Creek on January 9, 1866, for a sum of 

 $4,500. Cheda first located in Trinity County, where in 1859 he was 

 naturalized as an American citizen in Weaverville. Cheda and Solari were 

 among the first Swiss immigrants to arrive in Marin County, marking the 



225 Munro-Fraser, Marin County, pp. 431-433; Oliver Allen Papers, Bancroft Library, Berkeley; 

 John S. Hittell, The Commerce and Industries of the Pacific Coast of North America (San 

 Francisco: A. L. Bancroft & Co., 1882), p. 264. 



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