More than 13,000 years ago Native peoples, very likely the ancestors of the Chumash, came to what is now known as the Conejo Valley. The Chumash had a summer encampment where the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza sits now. Two Chumash villages were located by today’s Ventu Park Road, near the original location of the Stagecoach Inn.

1769 The first contact between Europeans and Chumash occurred when Gaspar de Portolá and his expedition party of 60 soldiers camped in what is now known as the Conejo Valley on their return journey from from the Monterey and San Francisco areas.

1776 Juan Batista de Anza and his party of 240 colonists camped in the Conejo Valley on their way north to settle Alta California.

1800 The Spanish government began granting land to men who had performed some service for the crown, or served faithfully in the army. A ranchero was required to build a storehouse and pasture 200 cattle on the acreage. The Conejo Valley was given its name by the Spanish.

1803 Rancho El Conejo was granted by the Spanish to Ignacio Rodriguez and José Polanco (grazing or use rights only, not ownership). Rancho El Conejo was one of only two land grants in what became Ventura County. The other was Rancho Simi.

1822 Polanco abandoned his claim and in 1822 his half of Rancho El Conejo was granted to José de la Guerra. De la Guerra became one of the richest men in California.

1861-1862 The great flood of 1861-62 wreaked havoc on the Californios’ cattle herds in southern California.

1863 Flooding was followed in 1863 by the first recorded drought on the Conejo, when many cattle died from lack of feed and water. Short of cash and burdened by usurious interest rates, many rancheros sold out.

1872 De la Guerra’s half of Rancho El Conejo was sold to John Edwards and Howard W. Mills of Santa Barbara.

1874 Edwards and Mills acquired most of the remaining original rancho lands, with smaller portions sold to fellow land speculators Egbert Starr Newbury and C.E. Huse.

1874 Egbert Starr Newbury purchased 2,259 acres of Rancho El Conejo land, including the site of today’s Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza. Egbert and his wife Frances (Fannie) built a home there in 1875, and established the Conejo Valley’s first post office.

1874-1876 James Hammell acquired land on Rancho El Conejo and built the Grand Union Hotel (eventually known as the Stage Coach Inn) as a rest stop for stagecoach passengers and a gathering place for others in the valley.

1876-1877 Another drought, with scarcely six inches of rainfall in 30 months, devastated the Conejo Valley, and ranchers experienced extreme losses. The Newburys’ land was foreclosed and they moved back to the midwest in 1877. James Hammell was forced to sell his business and about 1,000 acres of land to Mr. J.B. Redfield at a sheriff's sale in 1878.

1876 In 1876, Richard Orville Hunt purchased 950 acres east of the Conejo Hotel (formerly the Grand Union Hotel) from John Edwards. Richard and Mary Jane named their Conejo ranch “The Salto” (Salto Creek ran through it).

1881 Andrew Russell purchased the 6,000-acre Triunfo Ranch (now Westlake Village) for $15,000, or about $2.50 an acre, from Howard Mills. Mills had fallen behind on his mortgage payments and the bank foreclosed on his property. The de la Guerra adobe ranch house still stood on the Triunfo Ranch property and the Russells used it as their milk house where they stored milk and churned butter.

1885 Cecil Arthur Entwistle Haigh, an Englishman, purchased the Conejo Hotel and approximately 1,000 acres of the original Hammell land for $6,500. Cecil married his cousin Cicelie in 1892.

1887 The Newbury’s ranch, named Newbury Park by Fannie, was sold to Thomas Gormley in 1882 for $12,000. In 1887 the ranch was sold to Greenbury Crowley for $25,000. The Crowley family built a successful ranch on the land.

1888 Richard and Mary Jane Hunt moved to their Salto Ranch in 1888 with their three youngest children: Loren, Albert and Fred.

1893 Edwards sold 10,000 acres of what is now central Thousand Oaks to Edwin and Harold Janss for about $10 an acre. The land, today the site of The Oaks shopping center, was used as a farm and to raise thoroughbred race horses.

1910 The Crowleys built a five-bedroom home for newlyweds Frank and Mae Casey Crowley, on the Crowley Ranch. You can visit the Crowley House at 2522 Pleasant Way in Thousand Oaks.

1922 Much of the Crowley ranch was sold to what would become the Conejo Valley’s first land developers. The Crowley house functioned as the real estate office. Carloads of prospective buyers were brought from downtown Los Angeles, shown lots amongst huge oak trees, and given dinner in the Crowley House dining room before making the return trip.

1925-1929 Louis Goebel purchased the former Newbury/Crowley land for $50. Louis and his wife Kathleen lived in the Crowley House. Louis opened Goebel’s Lion Farm, where he trained lions and rented them to movie studios. In 1929 Goebel’s Lion Farm became Goebel’s Wild Animal Farm theme park.

1946-1969 Louis and Kathleen sold Goebel’s Wild Animal Farm in 1946, and it was renamed World Jungle Compound. It was sold again in 1956 and renamed Jungleland; the Goebel’s purchased it back in 1961. In 1969 Jungleland closed for good and the animals were sold at auction.

1951-1956 The Janss family began selling their Conejo Valley ranchland for development.

1963 Daniel K. Ludwig's American-Hawaiian Steamship Company bought the 12,000 acre Triunfo Ranch for $32 million and began developing the planned community of Westlake Village. De la Guerra’s adobe was eventually submerged by the Westlake dam.

1960 The Conejo Valley was said to be the fastest growing community in 14 Southern California counties.

1964 The Stage Coach Inn, formerly the Grand Union Hotel, was given to the Conejo Valley Historical Society (CVHS) by Allen Hays, a grandson of Cecil and Cicelie Haigh. CVHS deeded it to Conejo Recreation and Parks District with the understanding that it would be used as a museum. The building was moved to the site of today’s Stagecoach Inn Museum Complex in 1965.

1968 The last of the Salto Ranch was sold for development.

1970 The Stagecoach Inn Museum building was completely destroyed in a fire. The building was reconstructed through 1970 to 1980.

1994 The Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza was constructed on land trod by Chumash, Spanish explorers and settlers, Fannie and Egbert Newbury, the Crowley ranching family, and the lions, tigers and elephants of Jungleland.