Rancho Santa Anita Owners 1858 – 1865 (American Period)

Albert Dibblee was born on February 18, 1821 in Clermont, Columbia County, New York. His father, Flyer Dibblee, was descended from a family which had arrived in Massachusetts from England in 1636. Albert left school at 16 and through his position at the State Bank of New York developed a sharp business sense. 

After an injury in 1848 he was advised to take a sea voyage. He decided to head for California to engage in the lucrative mercantile trade in a booming San Francisco. Dibblee travelled on the ship Martha with a varied stock of merchandise including candy, paints, butter, pork, office fixtures, portable houses, and a 36-foot sailboat. At Valparaiso he invested in potatoes, which he sold in San Francisco at a handsome profit upon his arrival in 1850. 

Dibblee carried on his commission agent firm under his own name. A frugal man, for years Dibblee lived in a small room above his office, as he slowly made his fortune as a Commission Merchant of San Francisco from 1849 to 1895. Albert Dibblee's death in 1895 at the age of 75 was reported as headline news on both Coasts. A leading San Francisco newspaper wrote:

“Mr. Dibblee, for many years, has occupied a very prominent position, not alone as a successful merchant but as a patriotic citizen. He was sincerely admired for his extraordinary ability in public and organization affairs, for his intense loyalty to the welfare of his residence community, and for his fine personal character."

William Corbitt was born in Scotland in 1825. He came to Canada with his parents as an infant. At the early age of 9, He became orphaned and was made to earn his livelihood on a farm. At 14 he embarked on a business in trading stock and produce, in a few years he had acquired a fortune. Early in the 1850s, he came to California and settled in Los Angeles. He engaged in a commission and general merchandizing business and became the owner of over 190,000 acres in southern California, which included Rancho Santa Anita. Corbitt was also one of the leading trotting and harness racing horse breeders of California in his day. Corbitt died in 1898. 

Santa Anita

William Corbitt and Albert Dibblee were the fourth Santa Anita Rancho owners. It is noted by some historians that they had another partner named Barker. Neither Corbitt nor Dibblee lived on the Rancho. Albert Dibblee oversaw the partnership’s finances from San Francisco while his brother, Thomas, was operations manager and attorney. The land was used by Corbitt and Dibblee as stock land for grazing sheep.

The drought of the mid-1860s, virtually destroyed the cattle industry and put tremendous pressure on sheep ranchers. With prices depressed, Dibblee was able to buy up enormous tracts of land, concentrating their efforts in Santa Barbara County. Before they sold the Santa Anita land to William Wolfskill in 1865, they shaved off 2,000 acres on the west side and sold it to German merchant named Leonard Rose, which he called Sunny Slope, at $2 an acre. Rose is the namesake of the City of Rosemead.