Our history has been studied extensively by local historians, including John Calvin Sherer, who authored History of Glendale and Vicinity in 1922. Carroll W. Parcher incorporated much of Sherer’s information into Glendale Community Book published in 1957. A later version, Glendale Area History was published in 1974 and expanded in 1981. Much of what is presented here is garnered from these books, with “Parcher" and the year indicating the specific edition.

Our narrow valley was home to Native Americans for thousands of years before Europeans arrived. As Parcher 81 describes it, the land supported vegetation such as cactus, sagebrush, greasewood and mesquite, with running water ‘here and there,” along with wild mustard and “clumps of live oaks” and sycamores. Marshy land could be found along the “base of the surrounding hills.”

Although seemingly barren, those familiar with agriculture saw that cattle could graze here, along with horses and sheep. Grains such as “barley, wheat and oats” could be planted and corn, “vineyards, berries and fruit trees” were possible.

This region was occupied by the Tongva, who lived in villages spread out over 4,000 square miles, including the southern Channel Islands. The villagers traded back and forth, using a network of trails and watercraft.

Locally, their villages stretched from Topanga Canyon in the northwest to the base of Mount Wilson in the north, to the San Bernardino vicinity in the east and to the Aliso Creek vicinity in the southeast, according to a City of Glendale web site.

In the Glendale-Crescenta area, the village sites of Wiqanga, Tujunga, Hahamongna, Ashwaangna, and Maungna were established to oversee and steward resources and provide trade with one another, according to Richard Toyon, a fourteenth-generation Native Californian who is active in the local Tongva community. “Those villages in turn traded and established relations with other village sites further away. It was all rather complex but provided a stable system of balance, trade, and stewardship.”

Several tools used by the Tongva have been uncovered locally. A mortar and pestle (used to grind corn, seeds and other foods) and a fishing net weight were found in 1910 by a Glendale resident putting in a foundation for a house on North Brand Boulevard.

In 1994, another pestle was uncovered by a city crew digging a trench on Wilson Avenue. Identified as a sandstone pestle from the Late Period (post 550 A.D.), it was placed alongside the 1910 discoveries in the Special Collections Room (now the Glendale History Room) at the Glendale Central Library on Harvard.

Spanish explorers Cabrillo and Vizcaino, who sailed our shores in 1542 and 1602 respectively, interacted with the Native Americans and returned to report their findings. In 1769, Portola led sixty-four men on an overland expedition from Mexico to establish a permanent Spanish presence in what is now known as California.

With Portola was a young soldier, Jose Maria Verdugo, of Loreto, who was stationed in San Luis Obispo and then in San Diego before transferring to Mission San Gabriel, founded by Junipero Serra in 1771 as the fourth Spanish mission.

With the arrival of the Spanish, the Tongva were forced into labor at the mission, planting fruit trees and grape vines, sowing vast swaths of land with seed for grain and raising cattle which grazed on the surrounding lands. As the Spanish presence increased, the Tongva became known as Gabrieleño.

“Because of the missionary system’s near destruction of their way of life, it set the stage for rapid urbanization that followed, which nearly destroyed any last vestiges of the thousands of years of inhabitance, culture and stewardship,” Richard Toyon explained.

In 1779, Verdugo married Maria de la Encarnacion, of Sinaloa, Mexico. As a married man, he began planning for the future and decided to raise cattle and sell their hides at market. Needing grazing land, he found a triangular piece of undeveloped land near where the Arroyo Seco and the Los Angeles River met.

Included in Parcher 81 is a poetic description of Verdugo’s desire to own land. “Here in Alta California, in every direction from the mission, were literally thousands of acres of unclaimed land……..it was perfectly natural for the young corporal to appraise the untapped riches around him, as he became acquainted with the area.”

Verdugo applied for the right to keep cattle and horses on the 36,403 acres. Grazing rights were approved in 1784 by Governor Pedro Fages and Verdugo received official title to Rancho San Rafael in 1797. (This was the second Spanish land grant made to an individual in California. The first went to Verdugo’s friend and fellow soldier, Juan José Domínguez, who received 75,000 acres. According to their website, Rancho San Pedro is still intact.)

Verdugo, who remained in the Spanish Army for thirteen more years, asked his brother, Mariano de la Luz Verdugo, to manage his property. Mariano, who had also come with the 1769 expedition, grazed his own cattle on land near present day Universal City. During this time, Mariano served as alcalde of the growing pueblo of Los Angeles.

Jose Maria Verdugo retired from the military in his late forties and began expanding his ranch operations. Soon he had nearly 2,000 head of cattle, 670 horses and 70 mules. With the help of his son, Julio, he built several adobe structures for various uses; none are known to have survived to the present day. (The main house, according to Parcher 57, was in what is now northwest Glendale, near present day Hoover High. Ruins of the structure, variously described as being near Kenneth and Pacific, or near Kenneth and Clement, were seen as late as 1915. At one point, the property was owned by a man named Clement.)

Verdugo’s workers turned the soil and planted fields of grain. They also raised grapes and made wine besides growing red peppers, oranges, figs, pomegranates and other fruit.

His property lay on the main route from Mexico City to northern California. This was the same road used by locals traveling between San Gabriel Mission and the new San Fernando Mission.

Parcher 81 explains that this was the “Day of the Don,” when Spanish landowners provided hospitality to everyone. Verdugo often met important travelers at the rancho’s boundaries and escorted them across his land to protect them from the grizzly bears, deer, antelope and wild horses roaming the hills at that time.

When Verdugo died in 1831 at the age of 80, he “owed no one anything, although many were indebted to him, mostly for ranch produce, livestock and wine,” according to Parcher 81. He was buried in the cemetery at San Gabriel Mission. Other family members are also buried there.

Jose Maria’s estate was divided between his son Julio and his daughter, Catalina. Two other daughters had married and were presumably well provided for. Catalina, however, was blind from smallpox and never married; she lived at home and cared for her parents until their passing.

After Jose Maria’s death, Catalina lived with a series of relatives. Then, when Julio’s son, Teodoro, married, he built an adobe in what is now the Verdugo Woodlands and invited Catalina to live with his family, as explained in Parcher 81.

Teodoro Verdugo died in June 1904 and later that year, his youngest child, Dora, age 22, married Walter Bullock. The adobe and the surrounding property were sold and Dora and her husband, along with her mother, moved to another acreage on Verdugo Road and set up a dairy. They ran the dairy until 1923, when they sold to developer F. P. Newport. (Ellen Perry, Glendale News-Press, October 12, 1981)

Dora Verdugo’s husband and mother both passed away in 1929. In 1931, according to the Glendale city directory, she opened a small restaurant in the spacious backyard of her home on Verdugo Road, serving homemade tamales to diners seated at tables placed under the trees. Her property extended to the creek (now the concrete-lined Verdugo Wash), which ran along the edge of the property. (Katherine Yamada, Verdugo Views, Glendale News-Press, December 18, 2009)

The Verdugo Adobe (2211 Bonita Avenue) in the Verdugo Woodlands, is now a city park. The adobe is open for school tours and by appointment. The property has had several designations over the years: Verdugo Adobe, San Rafael Ranch, Bashor Adobe, Catalina Adobe and the former site of the Oak of Peace.

San Rafael Ranch was designated as State Historical Landmark No. 637 and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976

Bashor Gates at Verdugo Adobe Ernest and Jane Bashor, of Silverlake, seeking an eventual retirement cottage, purchased the adobe from F. P. Newport in the late 1940s. Their daughter, Doris McKently, said that the adobe had two main rooms and a wood addition. “Those old adobes had no heat other than the fireplace. They were cool in the summer, but cold in the winter.”

The Bashors preserved as much as possible, but the century-old rose bush had grown through the tar paper roof; it was reroofed with cedar shingles. They used the adobe as a family gathering place until Ernest Bashor died in 1969. Two years later, Jane Bashor moved to the adobe. In 1989, a year after her passing, the adobe and some of the acreage was sold to the City of Glendale. (Verdugo Views, Katherine Yamada, Glendale News Press, September 15, 2001) 

An Oak of Peace sign commemorates the meeting of emissaries of Lieutenant-Colonel John C. Fremont and General Andres Pico - near where the adobe now stands - in January 1847. The men made plans for their respective leaders to meet at Casa de Cahuenga, (near present-day Cahuenga Pass in North Hollywood). There, two days later, Fremont and Pico signed a truce ending the Mexican-American War within Alta California.

The oak tree, said to be 500 years old, succumbed to disease and old age some years ago. A commemorative sign was later placed near where the tree once stood.

Catalina Adobe. Julio’s son, Teodoro, built the adobe and invited his aunt, Catalina, to live there with his family. However, since Catalina was well-known as Jose Maria’s daughter, it became known locally as the Catalina Adobe. In 1947, the adobe was designated as such by California Parlor No. 247 Native Daughters of the Golden West.

Teodoro’s daughter, Dora, contended that it was her father’s house. ``It was built by my father, Teodoro Verdugo, some time around 1860,’’ she wrote in a letter to the Glendale News-Press at the time. Five years later, the Old Settlers Association of Glendale formally supported Dora Verdugo’s position and adopted a resolution that the adobe be known as the Teodoro Verdugo Adobe Casa. However, according to the City of Glendale website, it is the Catalina Verdugo Adobe. (Verdugo Views, Katherine Yamada, Glendale News-Press, July 12, 2003)

A fire in the early morning of July 11, 2020, destroyed the mission’s roof and the 150,000 gallons of water used by firefighters destroyed much of the interior flooring. However, original building materials were exposed during restoration and plans have been formulated to incorporate those finds into the rebuilding process.

The mission opened in 1771 as the first church in what is now Los Angeles. In honor of their 250th anniversary, 2021 was declared a Jubilee Year by Archbishop José H. Gomez. The celebration began Sept. 11 with a mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels and continues until Sept. 10, 2022, when a closing mass will be held at Mission San Gabriel Arcángel.

Los Angeles County has the largest Native presence and concentration of Native peoples anywhere in the United States, according to Richard Toyon. “Most have relocated here from various parts of the country in search of opportunity.”

“The Tongva had everything they could have possibly wanted in the beautiful California landscape and they were successful in the stewardship of the land. But because of the subsequent rapid development of southern California, the data they had collected over the thousands of years has been nearly lost. It is only recently that their stewardship and knowledge of the land is coming full circle and being uncovered and written about.

Much of those village sites and the recognition of the people who came before are being recognized more and more, as evidenced by Tongva Park in Santa Monica, Tongva Peak in Glendale and most recently, Abalone Cove Park in the Palos Verdes area.”

Our nearby mountain range, once home to the Tongva people, provided one of the borders of the Verdugo land grant (along with the arroyo and the river) and was named for Jose Maria Verdugo. The highest mountain, known as Verdugo Peak (3126’), is near the center of the range. In the 2003, another mountain was named Tongva Peak (2656’) to commemorate our first inhabitants.