After their 1851 marriage, second cousins Gerónimo and Catarina López moved into the house of her father near Mission San Fernando, where Pedro López had once been the civil administrator of the secularized institution. By the end of the 1850s, however, Pedro died and Gerónimo purchased a 40-acre tract from Maria de los Angeles Felíz de Burrows, a cousin, and on that new property he and Catarina built an adobe house that became a stage stop and hotel called López Station. The 1850s was a decade that began with the recently-ended American conquest still creating ill-feeling among many Spanish-speaking Californians and also included the burgeoning years of the Gold Rush, in which Los Angeles-area cattle were in high demand among the rapidly-growing population of the Sierra Nevada Mountains towns in which gold was being sought. The Gold Rush, however, wound down by the latter part of the decade and the local economy suffered as the demand for cattle declined and was also affected by a national depression in 1857.
The 1860 federal census for the area where the family resided was taken on 21 July by Nelson Williamson, who, like other census agents working in Los Angeles County, was clearly unfamiliar with the Spanish language. Additionally, he had “Gronancio Lopes” in his own separate household, while the adjacent one was for “Catranio” and her children José J, “Louisa” or Luisa, and brother Valentín, the latter later building the López Adobe. There were two other curiosities: first, there was no occupation given for Gerónimo or the 18-year old Valentín and, second, Gerónimo and Catarina were checked off as being unable to read or write (as will be seen in later census listings, this identification as illiterate varied) while Valentín was not so described. There was also space for self-reported real and personal property values, but none was recorded. As to the children, José Jesús, age 7 was the eldest of the family’s eventually large family, being born in 1853. Luisa, later McAlohan and who engaged in a significant remodel and modernization of the López Adobe, after she inherited and lived in it in the 1920s, was born in 1856.
A year and a half after the 1860 census, the local economy was further battered by a deluge that lasted from late December 1861 until near the end of January 1862. Often dubbed “Noah’s Flood,” the series of downpours left up to an estimated 50 inches of rain, causing the San Joaquin Valley, the Los Angeles basin, and other large areas to be covered almost entirely in water. Without flood control and dams to check the flow of water out of the San Gabriel Mountains, the effects were devastating, especisally to the already reeling cattle ranching industry. Then, as we now know from the El Niño/La Niña effect, the region suffered two consecutive years of bone-dry conditions, with perhaps only 4 inches of rain falling the next two years. This decimating drought on the heels of the great floods was the death knell of the cattle business.
However, with the conclusion of the Civil War and an upswing in the local economy as it moved into agriculture as its mainstay, Los Angeles and its environs experienced a development and population boom unheard of in the area. From the late 1860s to the mid 1870s, the region witnessed dramatic changes: a heavy increase in American and European migration that put Spanish-speakers in the minority for the first time; the growth of farming, as noted earlier, as the large cattle ranches of earlier decades were largely sold and subdivided into farm and town parcels; the introduction of a local railroad; the early stages of the oil industry; and many others. When the 1870 census was taken, much of the transformation was underway, though greatly accelerated in the following five years.
The count that year in the locale where the Lopez family lived was made by Jonathan D. Dunlap on 1 July and, like Williamson a decade before, Dunlap could not accurately record the name of Gerónimo, which he took for “Aramino,” though he was better with “Catharina.” While her brother Valentín lived nearby with his wife and young children, the family of Gerónimo, listed as a farmer, and Catarina was rapidly multiplying. José Jesús was age 17 and soon to leave home for employment in Santa Monica and, later with some reknown, at the fabled Tejon Ranch. Luisa, recorded again as “Louisa”, was age 14 and would, by mid-decade, be married to Thomas Dunne and beginning her own large family with him. Younger children included the twins Pablo and María Ygnacia, born in 1861, though, strangely, Pablo was not recorded with the family in the census; Miguel, born in 1863, who did not survive childhood; 4 year old “Seleste” or Celeste; “Gracios” or Gracia, also known as Grace, who was born in 1866; Ramona, who was born in 1869; and the one-month old, listed here as “J.D.,” but who was actually Esteban or Stephen. Dunlap also noted that Gerónimo and Catarina could, after all, read and write, but for the self-reported values in real estate and personal property, only $300 of the latter was put in his row of information.
In 1870, the family was well-established at its López Station property, which was along and received the business of travelers on the main road north from Los Angeles. Within a couple of years, however, the Southern Pacific railroad was forced by federal legislation to build a line from San Francisco to the growing city. This sparked a succession of new towns built along the emerging Southern Pacific lines, which were being built after 1873. One of these was San Fernando, the project of Charles Maclay, and which was directly encouraged by Leland Stanford of the Southern Pacific. It opened in 1874 as the local boom was becoming red-hot, but soon to cool off, as overspeculation, a national economy from 1873 finally having its effects, and, lastly, a burst of a stock bubble with silver mines at Virginia City, Nevada. When Los Angeles’ Temple and Workman bank failed in early 1876, the local economy was in a doldrums and remained that way for about a decade.
When the 1880 census was conducted in the San Fernando township on 1 June by Albert Moffitt, the López family was enumerated at López Station. Moffitt was no better than his predecessors at getting the head of the household’s name correct–it was listed as “Jeromia.” Notably, his occupation was identified as “hotel keeper,” indicating the still-operating business at the Station. “Catharine,” as with almost all women, was noted as “Keeping House.” The family had continue to grow, meanwhile. José Jesús, Luisa, and Pablo were no longer at home and the eldest child living there was Mary, age 18. There were, however, still 10 children in the residence, including Mary; Miguel (16); “Celestia” (14); Gracia (13); Ramona (11); Stephen (9); Catarina (8); Saragosa or Sarah (7); Erlinda (6); and Ruby (3). Also in the household were three boarders, Jesús and Tomás “Jackom,” ages 40 and 38 and from Mexico and California, respectively, and 17-year old Luis Ortega, also a California native—all three were listed as laborers and likely worked for the family at López Station.
Within a short time of this census, the López family made a momentous decision. With San Fernando and the railroad taking business away from the “landlocked” López Station, it was time to give up the business and property and move into town. Catarina’s brother began the construction of the adobe residence known as the López Adobe and the family moved in about 1883. With regards to the census, the 1890 count was lost in a fire in Washington, D. C. So, our accounting of the family will pick up with the 1900 enumeration, supplemented by some records from the 1890s period.