Welcome to RivCoParks

In 1846, the entire 26,000 or so acres of the Santa Rosa Plateau became part of the 48,000 acre Rancho Santa Rosa. It was a Mexican land grant presented to Los Angeleno Juan Moreno by Mexican Governor of California Pio Pico. Although Juan Moreno lived in Los Angeles and never resided on the Plateau, he commissioned an adobe structure to be built as a residence for the ranch manager (Major domo) or vaqueros (cowboys). In 1855, Senor Moreno sold his ranch to neighbor Augustine Machado for $1,000 American dollars and $500 worth of livestock. The Moreno and Machado Adobes still stand on the Plateau, and represent the oldest standing structures in Riverside County.

​

The Machado Family sold the rancho to F.W. Ludovici and A.L. Jeffries, with Ludovici investing a lot into making the area his dream ranch. After three and a half years, Ludovici loses the ranch to partner and mortgage holder, John Dear. Mr. Dear’s son Parker ended up purchasing the ranch and resided in a 3,000 square foot “Queen Ann Mansion” not far from the adobes. Many May Day picnics were hosted by the Dears during the 1880’s which attracted hundreds of residents from the region. Unfortunately, Parker Dear and his wife Elena could not make the ranch financially viable, and they lost the property to foreclosure during the financial crash of 1893.

In 1904, a rancher from Arizona named Walter Vail purchased the Santa Rosa Rancho and much of what was to become Murrieta and Temecula. Mr. Vail’s family, and later corporation, continued to operate the large cattle ranch for the next sixty years. Fortunately, for the native species of the area, the Vails were wise stewards of the property. They kept the number of cattle per acre to a sustainable level, and only grazed them on the Plateau during the wet months, moving their cattle down to valley feed lots when the dry, summer season arrived. The grazing practices of the Vail Ranch are one reason the Plateau is considered by many to be the finest remaining example of a once, widely-scattered California bunchgrass prairie system.

​

In 1964, the Vail Corporation sold the ranch to the Kaiser Steel Company which master-planned “Rancho California” – the communities that today comprise the cities of Temecula and Murrieta. In the first two decades of that era, grazing leases allowed cattle operators to continue to use the Plateau. Overgrazing and year-round use caused habitat deterioration during that twenty-year period, including the formation of deep erosion channels along some of the Plateau’s main creeks.

​

In 1984, The Nature Conservancy of California recognized the diverse concentration of unique and rare species supported on the Plateau lands, and purchased 3,100 acres in two parcels from a real estate firm, KACOR. It was named the Santa Rosa Plateau Preserve.

​

In the late 1980’s, Ranpac Inc. of Temecula purchased 3,800 acres comprising most of the land between the two parcels of the Preserve. A specific plan for approximately 4,000 homes was created, and citizens’ groups, Preserve Our Plateau and Save our Plateau, were formed to protect the conservation values of the property. Awareness and moral support was widespread, but funds were scarce; county, state and national agencies were unable to secure funding for a purchase that Ranpac would agree to for a fair market value price.

​

Seeking extensive and significant off-site mitigation opportunities for a new, large storage reservoir planned in the region, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) approached the organizations and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service with an offer to provide $15.4 million toward a purchase in exchange for mitigation credits for their future Diamond Valley Lake project. The County of Riverside nearly matched that funding with $15 million; the State of California’s Wildlife Conservation Board provided $5 million from Proposition 117 (Mountain Lion Initiative) funds. The Nature Conservancy handled negotiations and provided closing costs. Each entity purchased its own property, but the entire site – now known collectively as the Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Reserve – is managed as one biological unit.

In 2006, The Nature Conservancy sold its holdings to California Department of Fish and Wildlife, as well as responsibility for resource management of all biological aspects of the Reserve. They also sold the lands they had purchased to create an open-space corridor linking the Reserve with the 140,000 acre Cleveland National Forest to the north. The intent of the Tenaja Wildlife Corridor Project is to protect and provide a linkage between the two areas for the movement of animals.

​

Another landowner on the Reserve is the Riverside County Regional Park and Open-Space District. The Park District is responsible for visitor services including a 40 mile trail system, Visitor Center, and education programs. Together with the financial support from the nonprofit Santa Rosa Plateau Foundation, the Riverside County Regional Park and Open-Span District annually hosts over 7,000 local grade school children that visit and become inspired by one of their community’s most outstanding natural and cultural resources.

​

Additional purchases have expanded the Plateau’s protected size to nearly 10,000 acres. Annually, more than 50,000 day-use visitors travel to the Reserve for hiking, photography, nature study, etc. Visitors may also use certain designated trails for horseback riding and mountain biking.

​

Of the more than 120 sensitive species of plants and animals in the Inland Empire, 59 of them can be found on the Santa Rosa Plateau. California newts and southwestern pond turtles survive in bedrock-lined pools of the stream systems, and native wildflowers, some highly endangered, draw thousands of spring-time visitors. Vernal pools, the seasonal, shallow ponds which collect on rare, volcanic lava flow mesas, support endemic fairy shrimp and wintering waterfowl. Engelmann oaks, a rare, semi-deciduous species with blue-gray leaves and contorted branches, are found in abundance among the rolling grassland prairie. Badgers, horned lizards, mountain lions, bobcats, gray fox and deer are found on the Plateau, as are more than 200 species of birds.

​

The Plateau is an area of stunning biological diversity and rich human history. The Reserve stands as an example of human foresight and cooperation in protecting a special part of tour shared heritage.