The first European land exploration of Alta California, the Spanish Portolà expedition, passed through the area on its way north, recognizing Point Año Nuevo as the one named by Spanish maritime explorer Sebastian Vizcaino on New Year's Day in 1603. Coming north from Waddell Creek, the party passed inland of the point, camping near a creek to the north on October 23, 1769. There they found a good-sized native village. Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí, traveling with the expedition, noted in his diary that, "In the middle of the village there was an immense house of a spherical form, large enough to hold all the people of the town, and around it there were some little houses of a pyramidal form, very small, constructed of stakes of pine. Because the large house rose above the others the soldiers called it Village of the Casa Grande" José Simeon Nepomuncena Castro, the son of Marcario Castro, was born in Santa Barbara. Simeon Castro was a soldier at Monterey in 1809, and alcalde at Monterey in 1838-39. He married Maria Antonia Pico. He was granted Rancho Bolsa Nueva y Moro Cojo in 1837, and the four square league Rancho Punta del Año Nuevo in 1842. Simeon Castro died in 1842. With the cession of California to the United States following the Mexican-American War, the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo provided that the land grants would be honored. As required by the Land Act of 1851, a claim for Rancho Punta del Año Nuevo was filed with the Public Land Commission in 1852, and the grant was patented to Maria Antonia Pico de Castro and heirs of Simeon Castro in 1857. In 1851 Maria Antonio Pico de Castro sold Rancho Punta del Año Nuevo to Santa Cruz County pioneer Isaac Graham. Graham built a 2-story white house in 1857 which is remembered in the name of Whitehouse Creek. In 1862 Clark & Coburn of San Francisco purchased the adjacent Rancho Butano and Rancho Punta del Año Nuevo grants. Loren Coburn, born in Vermont, came to California in 1851, and worked first in mining. Coburn bought out his brother-in-law Jeremiah Clark. Coburn was an extremely aggressive land owner, contesting boundaries, and a perpetual litigant in the courts and was widely disliked. Coburn leased much of the land to a dairy enterprise run by the Steele family from Delaware. In 1869 Steele family bought south of Gazos Creek. Coburn and Clark’s legacy of defending their land slowed the subdivision and development of Rancho Punta del Año Nuevo.
