Title supplied by cataloger. The 93,000-acre Irvine Ranch, located in the heart of Orange County, stretches nine miles along the Pacific Ocean, 22 miles inland, and encompasses more than one-fifth of Orange County's total 798 square miles. In the 1860s, James Irvine and his partners purchased the ranch at an average of .25 cents an acre. It consisted of approximately 100,000 acres that were previously part of Rancho San Joaquin - bought in 1864 from Jose Antonio Sepulveda, which constitutes the coastal half of the present-day ranch; Rancho Lomas de Santiago - bought in 1866 from William Wolfskill, which was largely unfarmable due to its steep, hilly terrain; and Rancho de Santa Ana which was divided in an 1868 lawsuit. At the time of Irvine's death in 1886, the entire ranch was valued at $748, 500. In 1894, Irvine's son, James Irvine II incorporated the land holdings as the Irvine Company. By 1902, the Pacific Electric Railroad line had opened from Long Beach to Newport Beach, which created a real estate boom along its route. In 1903, George E. Hart bought 700 "non-productive acres", at $150 an acre, to develop the village of Corona Del Mar; over the years, the ranch moved away from being an agricultural center and moved closer to being a development company. Within the Irvine Ranch boundaries lie the city of Irvine, parts of Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, Tustin, Orange, Anaheim, unincorporated county land, and small portions of Santa Ana and Costa Mesa. Irvine Ranch has been under private ownership for more than 100 years and is considered one of the largest and most successful master-planned urban environments in the U.S. The Irvine Ranch Land Reserve (IRLR) recently designated 37,000 acres of the IRLR a "National Natural Landmark", making it the first site in California to receive NNL designation since 1987. View of the first Irvine Ranch house, built in 1868, on the present San Joaquin golf course. It shows a two-story house with a wrap-around porch and floor-to-ceiling windows all around, some of which have been broken. It appears that when the photograph was taken, the ranch house had been unoccupied.
Type
Image
Format
1 photographic print :b&w ;21 x 26 cm. Photographic prints
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