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Description

Attractive hand-colored G.T. Brown lithograph of "Lake Ranch" of R.T. Ray in the Santa Cruz Mountain community of La Honda, from Moore & De Pue's Illustrated History of San Mateo County.

The Lake Ranch or Ray Ranch was owned by Richard T. Ray.  The property first belonged to Salvador Castro, as part of the Rancho San Gregorio. Later, the property belonged to the “Estate of Burns John”.  John Burns was one of the early pioneering families at La Honda, who purchased property with Michael Dubbs in 1856.  Dubbs retained the north half of
the 1412.54 acres and Burns John too the south half, which would becme the Ray Ranch

John Burns became County Treasurer of San Mateo County, which had just been formed, but died later the same year (1859), leaving his wife and four children. Mrs. John then married their ranch hand, Richard T. Ray. In 1892, Richard Ray sold his property to William Hughes, of Hanson, Ackerson & Co., a large lumber company in the area.

G.T. Brown

Grafton Tyler Brown is perhaps the first and unquestionably the most famous African American artist and lithographer to depict California and the Pacific Coast. Born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, February 22, 1841, Brown moved to San Francisco at the age of 20 and learned the art of lithography from C. C. Kuchel. In 1861 and again in 1864, Brown created the two earliest bird's eye views of Virginia City. At the age of 26, he established his own firm, G.T. Brown & Co.

Brown produced skillfully illustrated bank notes, labels, and maps, and stock certificates for Wells Fargo, Levi Strauss and Co., and several mining companies. His significant lithographic production, The Illustrated History of San Mateo County (1878), featured 72 views of the county's communities and ranches. Brown traveled throughout Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, and British Columbia (where he settled in 1882), producing maps and illustrations, including many landscape paintings.

In 1893, Brown secured employment as a draftsman at the St. Paul, Minnesota office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Sometime during his St. Paul years he married Elberta Brown. Brown's work with the Corps of Engineers ended in December 1897, after which he worked in the civil engineering department of the city of St. Paul until 1910. He died on March 3, 1918, in Nicollet County, Minnesota, bringing to a close a rich and varied career as an artist and illustrator of the American West.