Rancho Saucos

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Rancho Saucos was a Mexican land grant of about 22,212 acres in what is now Tehama County, California. It was given in 1844 by Governor Manuel Micheltorena to Robert Hasty Thomes. The name means “Ranch of the Elder trees.” The grant ran along the west bank of the Sacramento River, from Elder Creek and Rancho Las Flores in the north to Thomes Creek in the south, including the area that is today Tehama.

Robert Hasty Thomes (1817–1878) was born in Maine and came to California in 1841 with the Bartleson–Bidwell Party. He later partnered with Albert G. Toomes in Monterey. Thomes arrived in the Tehama area with Toomes and others, and held a five-square-league grant directly across the river from Toomes’ Rancho Rio de los Molinos.

Thomes mapped Tehama in 1850, which became a riverboat stop and for a time the county seat, before Red Bluff took over as boats moved farther up the river. After California became part of the United States, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo honored existing land grants. Under the 1851 Land Act, Thomes filed a claim for Rancho Saucos in 1852, and the grant was patented to him in 1857.

In 1862, about 2,000 cattle were expected to perish during the Great Flood. Thomes died in Tehama in 1878, unmarried. By 1887, about 19,000 acres of the grant were owned by the John Finnell family, with the rest owned by Tyler, Mooney & Schultz. The land was mainly used to grow wheat, with some orchard fruit. It was said to have around 50 artesian springs. John Finnell and his sons, along with Thompson Finnell, each took about a quarter of the land, with other parcels owned by Mooney and J. C. Tyler northwest of Finnell’s property. Elder Creek ran through Tyler’s farm.