Since 2014, LHG manages and restores the City’s National Register recognized Hagemann Ranch (ranch era from 1850 to 1920). The remaining historic five acres is on Olivina Avenue. LHG operates the ranch as a base for other non-profits and opening to the public for programs and historic activities. Many thousands of guests have visited this unique local historic site through regular LHG events.

Bernal Family

The 4.5-acre Hagemann Ranch is the sole remaining parcel in Livermore of the original Bernal Land Grant, Rancho del Valle de San Jose. The 1839 Land Grant (by Mexican Governor Alvarado) to Augustin Pico (married to Maria de Pilar Bernal), Augustin Bernal, Juan Pablo Bernal and their other sister Maria Dolores Bernal de Sunol encompassed over 48,000 acres for cattle grazing. The family did not live on the Rancho until the Gold Rush migration.

Following statehood in 1852, the Bernals confirmed their land claim by applying to the Federal Land Commission. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Bernal claim in 1860. 1864 saw a terrible drought causing Juan Pablo Bernal to trade, promise, and mortgage 64 separate small parcels of the northeast section of the Rancho to offset the loss of cattle. In the Alameda County Court settlement of 1865, sections were awarded to multiple early settlers. 660 acres were granted to Martin Mendenhall.

After the Settlement

Mendenhall started his ranch, now Hagemann Ranch, building a small ranch house, barns, stables and smaller structures. These are the buildings you see today. He raised cattle and horses priding himself on his quality racehorses. Mendenhall transferred the property to Maas Luders in 1890 who in turn granted the ranch to his son-in-law Augustus Hagemann. The Ranch remained in the Hagemann family until the end of the twentieth century. The Hagemanns were prolific farmers and active members in the Livermore community.

See also Ann Homan's 2012 article in The Independent: [[ Hagemann Ranch Historic District ]], where she describes the earliest buildings, the race horses of Martin Mendenhall, and the 1985 interview with Herbert Hagemann.

Original Ranch House (B.Soules 2018)

Martin Mendenhall

Martin Mendenhall was born in Greene County, Ohio, in 1828. His parents moved to Cass County, Michigan, in 1834. There he worked his father’s farm until March 1849, when he started for California with ox-teams by way of the plains, arriving in Sacramento on 9/9/1849.

Here meeting his brother William Mendenhall, they moved together to Santa Clara Valley until March 1850. Martin started for the mines at Chinese Camp, near Sonora, Tuolumne County, and after laboring four months left in disgust to rejoin his brother in Santa Clara raising and trading cattle. In the fall of 1852, he returned to Michigan.

In February 1853, he married Miss Malvina Dolora Knapp, by whom he had five children, only three of whom survived: Clara, Julia, and Dora. That March, Martin came once more across the plains accompanied by his new bride. They arrived in Santa Clara about the middle of September 1853. He resumed his former occupation of stock-raising. In 1854, he moved to San Ramon Valley as a squatter on Bernal's Rancho property (which he paid $4000 for 400 acres in US Courts in 1863) following agricultural and pastoral pursuits for eleven years.

He sold out in 1865 and came to Livermore Valley where he reared excellent horses, cattle, and good crops. Contrary to lore that the farmhouse was built in 1836, later architects (and the historical timeline above) could only prove the original East-to-West section of the farmhouse was built in 1870. There might have been an older ranch-hand shack nearby prior to the the Mendenhall 1865 purchase.

Martin added an egg processing room and a tack room with jockey quarters for his horse business. He raised and raced trotting horses. His racetrack in 1876 was a half-mile track in a large open area for some hundred spectators. Martin sold the farmstead in 1890 and died in December 1898 from a cancerous growth on one of his hands.

[See also: Wood’s History of Alameda County, 1883 pg. 937]

August Hagemann

Herbert (Jr) grandfather, August, bought 185 acres from Mendenhall in 1890 and lived there until 1906. He leased out the Ranch until his son Herbert (Sr) moved there in 1916.

Herbert Hagemann

Herbert Hagemann (Jr) was born on the Hagemann Farm in 1921, 2.5 miles west of the flagpole on what used to be the end of Olivina Avenue. The population of Livermore was only about 2,000. He was interviewed in 1985 and shared his memories of businesses, schools, scandals, stills, politicians, among other topics.