Est. 1844 · California Rancho Period · Tongva/Gabrielino Heritage · Spanish Land Grant · California Historical Landmark
The site's documented history begins long before the existing adobe. The Gabrielino/Tongva people maintained a village called Tevaaxa'nga near the present-day ranch for thousands of years. Spanish colonization after 1769 forced many Tongva to Mission San Gabriel, disrupting established communities across the greater Los Angeles basin.
In 1784, King Ferdinand granted 300,000 acres to soldier Manuel Nieto as a military service reward — later reduced to 167,000 acres following a mission boundary dispute. His heirs held the 27,000-acre parcel known as Rancho Los Cerritos, 'Ranch of the Little Hills,' until selling to John Temple in December 1843.
Temple, a Massachusetts-born merchant who had become a Mexican citizen, commissioned Indigenous laborers to construct the adobe house in 1843-44. The two-story Monterey Colonial structure featured a sweeping veranda, glass windows, wooden floors, and adobe walls two to three feet thick — a materials choice that provided passive cooling in the Southern California climate. Temple ran up to 15,000 head of cattle and later profited from the Gold Rush meat market.
Severe droughts and flooding in the early 1860s devastated his herds. In 1866, Temple sold Rancho Los Cerritos to Flint, Bixby & Company for $20,000. The new operators shifted to sheep ranching, maintaining approximately 30,000 animals under the management of Jotham Bixby. As regional land values rose and sheep operations became less profitable, the property was subdivided. The cities of Long Beach, Downey, and Paramount developed on former ranch lands.
Llewellyn Bixby Sr. purchased the remaining five-acre parcel in 1929 and commissioned a renovation while preserving the Temple-era adobe structure. The City of Long Beach acquired the property and opened it as a public museum in 1955. Today the site operates as a nonprofit historic site with docent-led tours and educational programming focused explicitly on Tongva heritage alongside the rancho period.
Sources
- https://www.rancholoscerritos.org/about/history/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Cerritos_Ranch_House
- https://www.rancholoscerritos.org/visit/hours-admission/
ApparitionsCold spotsPhantom footstepsObject movementPhantom sounds
The reported phenomena at Rancho Los Cerritos cluster around two distinct historical layers, and investigators have generally noted them separately.
The most frequently described experiences involve the physical interior of the adobe: phantom footsteps in vacant rooms, furniture observed to have moved between staff visits, an empty rocking chair photographed in motion, and a persistent sensation of being watched. Cold spots have been documented by multiple visitors in different areas of the building.
A second category of reports involves auditory phenomena. A disembodied male voice has been described in areas associated with the ranch's ownership history, with some interpreting the voice as expressing agitation regarding the sale of the property. John Temple, the adobe's builder, sold Rancho Los Cerritos under financial duress in 1866 after the drought years decimated his cattle operation; he died in San Francisco the same year.
The context that investigators and local researchers frequently cite involves the adjacent Virginia Country Club golf course. During its development, workers uncovered approximately 50 Native American graves on land adjacent to the ranch. The Tongva village Tevaaxa'nga had existed in this area for centuries before Spanish colonization. The disturbance of those burial grounds has been discussed in Long Beach paranormal research circles as a potential factor in the adobe's reported activity, though no formal investigation findings have been published.
A third reported presence — described variously as darker and more unsettling than the other phenomena — has been mentioned in several accounts without further identification or documentation. The site's official programming makes no claims about paranormal activity; the adobe's documented history provides its own atmospheric weight.
Notable Entities
Don Juan Temple
