Rancho del Norte: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Channel Islands National Park, National Park Service
Fitzgerald K and Provencher S. 2002. Rancho del Norte: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Channel Islands National Park, National Park Service. Cultural Landscapes Inventory Report. 725485. NPS Pacific West Regional Office. Pacific West Regional Office/CLI Database
Rancho del Norte is an approximately nine hundred acre vernacular ranching landscape on the north side of Santa Cruz Island in Channel Islands National Park. Situated on a small level area which drops off cliffs into the ocean on the north side, and rises up steep slopes to the south, this cluster of corrals, troughs, fences, and a small residence is a discrete isolated landscape on an already isolated island. Surrounded by a number of pastures overgrown with fennel, the ranch is accessed primarily by a single road to the southwest and has magnificent views of the channel to the northeast. The ranch complex appears today much as it did during the period of significance of 1880-1952, the end of which is the date Rancho del Norte was constructed. It retains the roads, structures, fence lines, corrals, and planted vegetation from the period, although the invasive fennel plants now covers almost all of the former pastureland in the area. Natural systems and features, spatial organization, vegetation, circulation, buildings and structures, cluster arrangement, views and vistas, topography, and small-scale features contribute to the ranching landscape. Land use, however, does not contribute as the land has not been grazed since 1987. Overall, the landscape is in good condition due in part to the restoration of the ranch house and medicine shed by the Santa Cruz Island Foundation, and their ongoing maintenance of the property carried out under a cooperative agreement with Channel Islands National Park. Fennel mowing practices by the Santa Cruz Island Foundation have been in place since 1996.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Fitzgerald, Kathleen; Provencher, Shaun
- Date of Issue
- 2002-09-30
- Publisher
- NPS Pacific West Regional Office
- Units
- CHIS , PWR
- Keywords
- Agriculture, animal husbandry, Cattle Frontier, Edwin Stanton, French Alps Architecture, Historic Vernacular Landscape, Justinian Caire, Livestock, outbuildings, ranches, Roy Kelley, Santa Cruz Island, The Nature Conservancy, Vernacular
- Subjects
- CRIS-CL: 725485: Rancho del Norte