Lake Elsinore, CA news and local guide

On January 7, 1844, Julian Manriquez received Rancho La Laguna, almost 20,000 acres including the lake and an adobe on its south shore. Abel Stearns acquired the rancho in 1851 and sold it in 1858 to Augustin Machado, who built a seven-room adobe on the southwest side. The rancho became a regular stop on the Butterfield line between Temecula and Temescal, with the old Manriquez adobe as the station house; it later served as the post office for the settlement of Willard and stood until 1964. During the Great Flood of 1862 the lake rose high enough that the Union Army set up a post there to water its horses, and in the drought of 1862 to 1865 most of the region's cattle died and the lake fell. The Machado family kept the rancho until 1873, when most of it was sold to the Englishman Charles A. Sumner, and the rains of 1883 and 1884 filled the lake to overflowing in three weeks. Sources Wikipedia: Lake Elsinore, California