Vacaville sits on land that was granted to Juan Manuel Vaca and Juan Felipe Peña in 1843. Originally called Rancho Lihuaytos - the name of Putah Creek at that time - the land eventually came to be known as Rancho Los Putos. In 1850, Vaca sold one square league (about 9 square miles) of land to William McDaniel with the provision that one square mile (640 acres) would be used to create a township called Vacaville. The sale caused significant controversy, as Vaca did not speak, read, or write English and later claimed that William McDaniel had misled him into selling 9 miles instead of the 1 mile he had agreed to, and the attorney for McDaniel, who profited
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from the sale of the land, acted as interpreter during the transaction. The land sale caused a rift between the Vaca and Peña families. Following the quarrel, Vaca sold his adobe to John Wesley Hill, prior to Vaca’s death in 1856. The Vaca adobe was destroyed during the Vacaville-Winters earthquake in 1892, but the Peña home has been carefully preserved thanks to the stewardship of the City of Vacaville and the Peña Adobe Historical Society. Visitors can tour the adobe and the accompanying Mowers-Goheen Museum, whose collection includes children’s toys from the Peña family, clothing from the turn of the century, and even a woolly mammoth bone.
