Les Storrs Santa Monica Portrait of a City Yesterday and Today, Santa Monica Bank: Santa Monica, CA, 1974, 67 pp., 1872.
Chapter Two: Men o f Vision
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"Col. Robert S. Baker . . . [came] to California from Rhode Island in 1849, but instead of joining the gold rush, he sold supplies to the miners, as a member of the firm of Cook and Baker, San Francisco. He prospered, and later became active in growing cattle and sheep in Northern California.
" . . . in 1872, when Colonel Baker purchased the Rancho San Vicente y Santa Monica, 38,409 acres from Don Jose del Carmen Sepulveda and other members of the Sepulveda family.
"The price was reported by Ingersoll to have been $53,000."