At a watering hole on the east side of Pacheco Pass, Juan Pacheco built this adobe for his rancho in the early 1840's. The gun ports in the walls are visible reminders of the dangers from Yokuts Indians, marauding bands of ex-Mission Indians, and bandits emerging from the San Joaquin Valley. This was the frontier of Mexican California.
Paula FatjoPaula Fatjo (fah-tcho),descendent of the Pachecos and the Malarins and heir to Rancho San Luis Gonzaga, restored the adobe as her home and ranching headquarters in 1948. A San Francisco society belle, she decided to return to the family rancho and live the life of her ranchero ancestors.
In the 1960s the Central Valley Water Project took about half the rancho, including the site of the ranch headquarters and the adobe. Paula built a new ranch headquarters here on the western portion of the rancho. But she wouldn't leave the old family adobe to be melted away by the flooding waters of the San Luis Reservoir. It was the oldest adobe in the San Joaquin Valley. She built new foundations at this location, and lifted the adobe structure onto a truck to be transported to this spot. Up the hill it came, but at the last moment the truck shuttered, and the side walls of the precarious adobe came tumbling down.
We had bought some Arabians from Paula's breeding and visited the ranch in 1979. The old adobe was behind her house and was in pieces. She didn't know if it could be put back together at that time. She said she hadn't seen the back of the property in many years. At that time, she had Santa Getrudis (?) cattle and a few Arabians. There were at least 4 Mexican families living in adobes on the property and she said most traced all the way back to the original owners. They worked the cattle and tended the horses. Interestingly, they spoke Spanish to her and she replied in English.Don't know what happened to them when she passed.
She wasn't in good health at the time. Something to do with her lungs.
Her stories of her father hooking up the wagon on friday night and taking the 'hands' down to Coalinga and seeing them come back Saturday bruised bloodied and hung over were very interesting. Paula had been educated at a fancy girls school back east (I'm getting old and some things just won't come to me.)
The white Peacocks were beautiful and we have pictures of them next to her house. She said someone had brought a couple to the ranch a number of years before to help with the rattlesnakes and they just went population crazy.
Saw this site and decided I'd like to leave what little I know about Paula before it's totally lost.
To her friend Reggie, who has passed by now; you were the nicest and funniest man I ever met.