3919 Lankershim Blvd
Studio City, CA, USA

Campo de Cahuenga

The Campo de Cahuenga, (/kəˈwɛŋɡə/ (listen)) near the historic Cahuenga Pass in present-day Studio City, California, was an adobe ranch house on the Rancho Cahuenga where the Treaty of Cahuenga was signed between Lieutenant Colonel John C. Frémont and General Andrés Pico in 1847, ending hostilities in California between Mexico and the United States. The subsequent Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848, ceding California, parts of Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Arizona (but not Texas since it had seceded from Mexico in 1836, declared itself a republic, and joined the union in 1845) to the United States, formally ended the Mexican–American War. From 1858 to 1861 the Campo de Cahuenga became a Butterfield Stage Station.


History

The original adobe structure was demolished in 1900. The city of Los Angeles provided funds for the purchase of the property in 1923, and a Mission Revival and Spanish Colonial Revival style replica "adobe" ranch house was built by the city following an effort led by Irene T. Lindsay, then President of the San Fernando Valley Historical Society, and dedicated on November 2, 1950. It is now a park and interpretive center managed by the City of Los Angeles's Department of Recreation and Parks in partnership with the Campo de Cahuenga Historical Memorial Association. Campo de Cahuenga is registered on the National Register of Historic Places, as California Historical Landmark No. 151, and as Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 29.

The foundations of the original adobe were unearthed beneath Lankershim Boulevard during construction of the Metro B Line subway. The parts of the foundations within the park are preserved as an exhibit, and the "footprint" of the foundations under the street and sidewalk is marked by decorative pavement.

Campo de Cahuenga is often confused with the nearby Rancho Cahuenga, an inholding within the Rancho Providencia land grant, now part of Burbank.

The building is used by various organizations for special programs and regular meetings, and it is open with a docent on the first Saturday of each month, from 12:00 PM to 4:00 PM.

California Historical Landmark

California Historical Landmark Marker No. 151 at the site reads:

NO. 151 CAMPO DE CAHUENGA - 'Here was made the Treaty of Cahuenga by General Andrés Pico, commanding forces for Mexico, and Lieutenant-Colonel J. C. Frémont, U.S. Army, for the United States. By this treaty, agreed upon January 13th, 1847, the United States acquired California - finally secured to us by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, made February 2nd, 1848.' This legend was written February 9, 1898 by Mrs. Jessie Benton Frémont.

National Register of Historic Places - Campo de Cahuenga

Statement of Significance:

The remains of the adobe of the adobe are eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places under Criterion C, the period of significance being its construction ca. 1795, and Criterion D, the period of significance being from ca. 1795 until the 1880s when it was described as a ruin. The foundations and tile floors are intact and have yielded important information about Mission-era construction practice and materials; its unusual size and the presence of tile floors are evidence of its importance. A pivotal event in the history of California and the West took place here. The research conducted to confirm the signing of the Articles of Capitulation at this location led to the design and placement of the whole chain of "Mission Bells" that commemorate the route of El Camino Real. The standing structure and the grounds are eligible under Criterion A in the area of conservation. Significant dates are the City's acquisition of the park for the purpose of commemoration in 1923, and construction of the present memorial building in 1949 that replicates the adobe according to archaeological evidence. It was built as an historical commemoration, to be used and enjoyed by the public. The standing structure has not been altered since its construction, and the grounds maintain the basic elements (surrounding wall, gate, central fountain, axial paths, and mature plantings) of the City's landscape plan of 1927, which incorporated these features already in place when Los Angeles acquired the property. The more formal planting plan of 1950 adapted the same elements to the presence of the new building. While urban growth has encroached upon a setting that was formerly remote and isolated, once behind the high walls, the visitor still enjoys the sense of a peaceful outpost on a historic route of travel.

Each of the constituents of the Campo de Cahuenga Memorial Park is important within one or more of the defined areas of significance. The site is significant as the setting of a pivotal event in political history at the international level. The Articles of Capitulation signed here in 1847 by General Andres Pico and Lt. Col. John Fremont were the forerunner to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in the following year. They ended hostilities of the Mexican War in California and led directly to the acquisition of the territory now occupied by California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and parts of Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico. The treaty was pivotal in the change from Mexican politics and culture to United States control of Los Angeles and the greater West by those of Euromerican origin and tradition. There is no other known structure, landmark, or commemoration in the region associated with the ending of the Mexican War. The Campo de Cahuenga Memorial Park commemorates more than the political event that transpired here. The place name itself testifies to its setting: campo meaning flat, open country or a camp, and Cahuenga referring both to a Native American village and the pass through the mountains which has historically been a route of travel. The adobe was where the Articles of Capitulation were signed.

Even before that, the adobe was a pioneer structure and enterprise in the settlement of southern California, and its association with Mission San Fernando was not recognized prior to this research. Prior to the founding of the Mission, the land was part of one of the earliest grazing permits awarded by the Mexican government. The property fell within the grazing rights awarded in 1795 to a leather jacket soldier Mariano de la Luz Verdugo. One source places Verdugo on the land by 1783, when the site was claimed by the pueblo, occupied by the mission (Harlow 1976: opp. 21). Verdugo was popular with the Native Americans of the nearby village of Caweenga (various spellings) and remained in possession until Fathers Urresti and Muñoz took back the concession in 1810 to serve the growing needs of Mission San Fernando. It is likely that the adobe was built either by Verdugo or by the Mission itself. Mission San Fernando was the source of the roof and floor tiles and could have provided the expertise and Native American labor for construction.

The-adobe-was an important building of singular size and costly construction, clearly-associated, with the Mission period, in construction materials, method, and time, if not also in function. It was one of the largest secular buildings known in southern California, at this time second only to Yorba's adobe in Orange County. It is actually larger than the Missions of Santa Barbara or San Rafael Arcangel. The next largest adobe, in Santa Fe Springs, CA, was built by or for Patricio Ontiveros, himself the mayordomo of Mission San Juan Capistrano. The unusual use of floor tiles in a secular building is a further sign of association or prosperity. The Ontiveros Adobe had only dirt floors. Mission traits in the adobe remains include exterior foundations 1 meter wide, with partition wall foundations two-thirds that width, the size and black core of the tiles, use of plaster, and square bases for the massive pillars that supported the corredor, or porch. In size and construction, it is a rare example of its type. The construction methods and materials are typical of its age, in contrast to wood framing and shingle roofs which were common by the mid-nineteenth century.

On El Camino Real at the north end of Cahuenga Pass, still a major route of travel as Lankershim Boulevard, construction of the adobe was instrumental opening the broad plains of San Fernando Valley to a burgeoning population and agricultural industry. Appropriate to its location on a major route, the adobe is mapped as a stop on the Butterfield Stage. The period of significance for the subsurface remains is from the postulated date of its construction, ca. 1795, to the time when it was observed in ruins, in the 1880s.

The 1949-50 Park building is conceived and presented as a commemoration of a Mission-period structure and the important event that transpired there. It has been interpreted on the archaeological evidence of the footprint, floor plan, and construction materials of the original. It was executed according to a restoration master plan that included not only the structure but the historical landscape. The extant building was designed by the Los Angeles firm of Spencer and Landon to replicate the adobe and commemorate the events that transpired there. The architects based their plan on the excavation at the adobe in 1931 incorporating the tile floors and massive square pillars reported by Miller (1932). Details such as the heavy wooden lintels over recessed windows and doors, exposed beams, overhanging eaves, and plank doors were replicated while light fixtures and interior wall finishes that lacked -archaeological evidence were selected to be compatible with the Mission period. It presently serves as a museum and meeting place for many civic and historical associations, and a Reenactment of the signing of the Articles of Capitulation is held every January with cannon fire, music and dancing, and costumed portrayals of the principals, settlers, and Native Americans. It has not been altered since the dedication in 1950.

When the City acquired the property in 1923, the existing veterinary hospital was laid out with the four palm trees, axial gravel paths dividing grassy areas, and the central fountain within a walled compound. After acquisition, the city made no essential changes beyond replacing the front gate. A plan drawn in 1927 illustrated these elements, adding small foundation plantings such as hollyhocks, loquats, and jasmine along the walls and beside the old veterinary buildings. These would have been removed when the animal facility was demolished.

The architects' plan for the new structure in 1949 depicted the same setting, identifying the same 30" palm trees and 36" pepper trees, paths, and pool. The tile pavement surrounding the central fountain was perhaps their suggestion. The landscape plan by the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks in 1949 used the existing elements to suggest the form of a Spanish Colonial courtyard. The formal design retained numerous mature specimen trees and the circulation pattern already established when the property was acquired by the City in 1924. Added were giant birds of paradise at the corners of the building, a row of pomegranates along the west wall, dwarf myrtles, Catalina cherries, and ivy along the fences on the east and north sides of the building. The plan prepared in 1949 specifying the plantings, central fountain surrounded by tiles, lawns, and axial pathways survives intact. The four palm trees, myrtles, pepper trees, giant birds of paradise, pomegranates, and small foundation plantings remain in place, and an existing laurel tree was relocated from the front wall to the northeast corner of the building. The flagpole called for in the plan was erected by the American Legion in 1951, with a base composed of the original floor tiles saved from the 1931 excavation. One El Camino Real bell was already on the property prior to the City's acquisition, and a second one has been added along with numerous plaques of historical recognition.

Archaeological and historical research has already yielded important information about the age and owner of the adobe, its unique size and tile floor, and confirmed its association with the Mission (Foster, Pitt, and Kimbro 2000). Local lore based on the Miller article (1932) and repeated on plaques and in publications had long claimed that Don Tomas Feliz built the adobe in 1845. Archival research established not only that Feliz had died in 1830, before the Articles were signed, but that there is no documentary evidence that suggests he was ever associated with this vicinity. Credible evidence has been found that the adobe is much earlier than previously assumed and that the land was first used under a grazing permit, prior to any land grants. There was already an adobe on the property when Mission San Fernando evicted Mariano de La Luz Verdugo in either 1809 or 1810 (sources differ), and the owner of record in 1847 was Eulogio de Cell's, unsung in histories but a prominent and prosperous Spanish landowner in Los Angeles.

The archaeological efforts at CA-LAN-1945H have uncovered the plan, room divisions, construction materials and methods, and almost unprecedented size of the building. There is continuing potential to document the north and side porches, their supports and materials; for particle and palynological analysis of the tiles and traces of adobe; studies of the plaster and mortar; and any outbuildings, deposits, or additional features in pristine areas not examined. The several excavations have demonstrated the site's eligibility under Criterion D.

The actual location of the Indian village of Caweenga has never been identified, although Native American artifacts have been found in the excavations, and histories record good relations between the local indigenous people and Verdugo King has called this a historic-Tongva village that contributed -recruits to both -San Fernando and San Gabriel Missions and cites an entry for a child of Mariano de la Luz Verdugo at this village. Harrington's notes report a portion of a mound that was 50 feet long, identified as "the remains of a large adobe house adjacent to Universal City" (King 1994:96-97). Any further discoveries at the Campo site, CA-LAN-1945H, will contribute to the little that is presently known about interaction between the Euro American settlers and Native Americans.

In the late nineteenth century, preservation efforts were largely undertaken by private citizens and devoted to restoring the California missions. After the Native Sons of the Golden West established the Historic Landmarks Committee in 1902, at the instigation of Joseph R. Knowland, the interest in preservation spread among members of the Society of California Pioneers, Pioneer Women, Native Daughters, California Club, the California Historic Landmarks League, and other likeminded groups. Although mission restoration projects continued to be their focus, by the second decade of the 1900s, attention was being paid to secular adobes, mansions, roads and trails, and programs to place commemorative markers and plaques. In 1910, the Women's Club of Hollywood, prompted by Mrs. Armitage S. C. Forbes, erected a Mission Bell replica at the site of the Casa to mark the route of El Camino Real. The bell was dedicated by Elizabeth Benton Fremont, the daughter of Gen. John C. and Jessie Benton Fremont (Knight 1991a:16). It was Mrs. Forbes' research that had led to the "rediscovery" of the Casa de Cahuenga site, and she relocated the original Spanish version of the Articles that had been missing for 77 years. She had founded the El Camino Real Association in 1904 (Dabney 1955:2) for the express purpose of engendering public interest in historic sites such as this. By 1926, there were 450 of the distinctive bell-shaped standards marking El Camino Real (Hata 1992:5-9), including the one at the Campo. The first California State Society tablet at the Campo was placed by the Eschscholtzia Chapter of the daughters of the American Revolution in 1916 (Knowland 1941:209). Knowland himself called the Campo de Cahuenga one of southern California's "shrines...intimately connected with the early history of the state" (Knowland 1941:185,190-191).

Mrs. Forbes attempted to convince the State to create a permanent memorial to be known as the Fremont-Pico Peace and Memorial Park. A bill introduced in 1917 to purchase the site was passed by the legislature but was vetoed by the governor. She then organized several historical, patriotic, and civic organizations to prevail upon the City of Los Angeles to purchase the property, and Lots 16 and 17 of the Universal Subdivision were bought by the City on May 23,1923, for $15,000 (Slawson and Greenwood 2000:7). The Campo de Cahuenga was thus one of the earliest historic places in California to be recognized and commemorated by private citizen groups, before the proliferation of local, state, and federal programs in the second quarter of the century.

The acquisition of the Campo de Cahuenga property by the City of Los Angeles in 1923 was one of the early examples of developing a commemorative historic park under municipal auspices and was itself a landmark in the history of historic preservation by a local government. Although the tourist attraction of Olvera Street in downtown Los Angeles was being created at about the same time, it was the work of a single private citizen. The State Park Commission was enacted in 1927, and the influential report by Frederick Law, Sr., in 1929 emphasized the values of scenery and outdoors recreation, rather than preservation or commemoration (Newton 1971:572-572). The State Landmark program did not become official until 1931. (The Campo was one of the early sites designated under that program The 1934 application was approved in 1935.).

Continuing efforts to have the site transferred to State or Federal supervision and to reconstruct the Casa failed. Although some community events and fiestas took place, the city was unwilling to maintain the facility and the Memorial Park fell into disrepair. "It was because of the hitherto futile efforts to do something about the Campo that the San Fernando Historical Society was founded July 4,1943" (Dabney 1955:4). The association held its meetings at the site and organized the first centennial celebration of the signing of the Articles on January 13,1947. The festivities honored Mrs. Forbes and brought about the revival of the old 1917 Campo de Cahuenga Memorial Park Committee, which became the nucleus of the present Campo de Cahuenga Memorial Association (Slawson and Greenwood 2000:9).

The pending state centennial activities sparked renewed efforts to declare the Campo a State or National memorial park, and to obtain funds from the State Centennial Commission and the State Parks Department for needed improvements. Public sentiment for a restoration of the site was reinvigorated, a petition with more than 32,000 signatures was presented, and a model constructed of a restored Campo de Cahuenga (Alien n.d.; Dabney 1955:4). While these efforts failed, the 102nd anniversary of the signing of the Articles was celebrated at the Campo in 1949. The keynote speaker, George Hjelte, General Manager of the Recreation and Parks Department took the occasion to announce plans for a new "Historical Building" to replicate the original adobe and improved grounds, and the sum of $40,000 allocated to the project. The building ultimately cost $34,432 (Dabney 1955:5) and was dedicated on November 2,1950.

It was the stipulated intent that the new building should be available for cultural, historic, and patriotic meetings and activities, and its calendar filled promptly. An early youth event was the Fly-Up Ceremony of the Jolly Friends Blue Birds (junior group of Campfire Girls) on February 2,1951. From May through October of that first summer, a series of evening concerts was presented by groups including the Los Angeles Board of Education, Bureau of Music in the Municipal Art Department, Valley Civic Organizations, the Mexican Tipica Orchestra, and Kiwanis Youth Orchestra. Although it has not been possible to trace the first time that various organizations met in the new Campo building, by 1964, about 20 adult groups were established in the facility for their regular meetings either during the day or in the evening (Lykins 1964). These included groups as diverse as the daughters of the American Revolution, Native Daughters of the Golden West, rockhound and camera clubs, the Armenian American Citizens' League, Co-operative Arts, Great Books, Volkswagen and Porsche clubs, Icarian Flying Club, fraternal societies, and the San Fernando Valley Historical Society, tenants since the organization was founded at the Campo in 1943. Other events included juried art shows jointly sponsored by the Board of Recreation and Parks Commissioners and the Campo Memorial Association, the annual commemoration of the signing of the Articles, and the formal dedication of a plaque honoring Donna Bernardo Ruiz for the part she played in urging Fremont to end the hostilities with Mexico. It was a lively place, staffed during the day by a full-time gardener-caretaker, and during evenings until 10 by the assistant in charge when other special permits were issued.

Campo de Cahuenga is one of California's most important historic locations, the site of the treaty signing that launched the state into its American era. The importance of that event was early recognized by the state's pioneer preservationists who created this park to preserve and commemorate what remained of the historic adobe.