The California Gold Rush might not have panned out for many prospectors (get it), but it sure made a lot of shop owners rather wealthy. One of those shop owners was James Irvine. He owned a shop on Front Street in San Francisco, a Scotch-Irish immigrant that came to America during the Potato Famine. With his new found wealth he developed an interest in real estate. He bought a few other buildings in San Francisco and then, looking to buy a large plot of land in an inexpensive area, he became an investor in a sheep grazing operation in what was then a remote area South of Los Angeles. 

Irvine slowly grew the sheep grazing area by buying up adjacent parcels, mostly from original Spanish land grant owners. Unlike others buying up ranches in the area, Irvine had no desire to parcel his land up to sell it off to the highest bidder. He saw the land as something that should stay in his family and be managed by his son James Irvine II. Eventually James Irvine Jr. (a title that he apparently hated) inherited the land and after the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 he decided to move onto the property and try his hand at farming. It turned out he loved it. He grew the ranch into one of the most productive farms in the state. 

James II’s love for farming influenced him in important ways. First, he decided to sell off large swaths of coastal land as the rocky

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