Rancho Camulos

A National Historic Landmark. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996. 14 historic topographic surveys show this location, the earliest from 1900.

From the record

“Rancho Camulos, now known as Rancho Camulos Museum, is a ranch located in the Santa Clara River Valley 2.2 miles (3.5 km) east of Piru, California, and just north of the Santa Clara River, in Ventura County, California. It was the home of Ygnacio del Valle, a Californio alcalde of the Pueblo de Los Angeles in the 19th century and later elected member of the California State Assembly.”
Wikipedia article Rancho Camulos, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 39 National Register listings published here for Ventura County · listed in 1996 · category: District · a National Historic Landmark.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

Address. 5164 E. Telegraph Rd., Piru, 93015
When was it listed? November 1996
Category. district
Census division. Fillmore
Architectural style. Spanish Colonial Revival architecture
National Register reference number. 96001137 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Then and now

1900 to 1995

The ground this property stands on, surveyed 95 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet covering Rancho Camulos, surveyed 1995

Topographic sheet covering Rancho Camulos, surveyed 1900

Fires near this property

19 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 19 fires within 5 miles of Rancho Camulos between 1992 and 2020, burning about 13,875 acres in total. None started naturally. 1 was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	14
Equipment and vehicle use	2
Arson/incendiarism	1
Debris and open burning	1
Misuse of fire by a minor	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
21 September 2010	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Angeles National Forest	MULTIPLE
17 August 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	2,151 acres	Ventura County Fire Department	HOLSER
8 July 2010	Equipment and vehicle use	3.0 acres	California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection	not named
18 July 1997	Debris and open burning	43 acres	Los Padres National Forest	TEMESCAL
18 July 1992	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Angeles National Forest	DART
17 July 1999	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	2,000 acres	California Southern Region Operations	HOLSER CA VNC 18889
16 July 1998	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Los Padres National Forest	DAY
14 July 1996	Misuse of fire by a minor	under an acre	Los Padres National Forest	DAY

Every fire recorded in Ventura County

Mines and quarries near this property

1 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 1 working within 5 miles of Rancho Camulos: 1 prospect. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Gold. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	Cic Prospect	Gold	Prospect

Every working recorded in Ventura County

Storms near this property

5 since 1997

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Piru, the town this property stands in, in 5 storm reports between 1997 and 2016: 3 wildfire, 2 flash flood. The reports record 7 injuries. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
October 1998	Wildfire	Piru	7 hurt, $400,000	The combination of dry vegetation and offshore winds fueled a wildfire in the Santa Clara Valley. The Piru Fire, started by sparks from a welder's torch, burned over 12,500 acres between the communities of Piru and Fillmore. Sixty power poles and 1700 agricultural trees were either lost or damaged. Several homes in Fillmore were evacuated. Seven minor injuries were reported.
August 1997	Wildfire	Piru	$5,000,000	no account filed
January 2016	Flash Flood	Piru	-	Heavy rainfall over the community of Piru resulted in a mud and debris flow. The intersection of Main Street and Piru Canyon Road was blocked by mud and debris.
October 2006	Flash Flood	Piru	-	An area of intense showers and embedded thunderstorms moved across the Day Fire burn area. Flash flooding with mud and debris flows were reported in and around the Hungry Valley Recreational Area by fire officials on the Day Fire.
October 2003	Wildfire	Piru	-	The Piru Fire, aided by gusty Santa Ana winds, burned thousands of acres in Ventura county. As of the end of October, the fire had yet to be fully contained. The fire burned over 60,000 acres of forest in Ventura County by the end of the month and destroyed one residence.

Every storm recorded in Ventura County

Maps showing this location

14 surveys

United States Geological Survey topographic sheets whose coverage includes this point. Matched by taking the middle of the area the National Park Service maps for this listing, then testing that coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet.

1900 USGS Piru quadrangle1:62500
1903 USGS Camulos quadrangle1:125000 - 5 printings
1921 USGS Piru quadrangle1:62500 - 4 printings
1931 USGS Santa Felicia Canyon quadrangle1:24000
1935 USGS Santa Felicia Canyon quadrangle1:24000 - 3 printings
1941 USGS Piru quadrangle1:62500
1949 USGS Los Angeles quadrangle1:250000 - 2 printings
1952 USGS Piru quadrangle1:24000 - 7 printings
1955 USGS Los Angeles quadrangle1:250000
1959 USGS Los Angeles quadrangle1:250000 - 3 printings
1966 USGS Los Angeles quadrangle1:250000
1975 USGS Los Angeles quadrangle1:250000 - 2 printings
1979 USGS Los Angeles quadrangle1:100000
1995 USGS Piru quadrangle1:24000

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 96001137 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Ventura County	All 39 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.