In the late 1820s, the Bernal Hacienda at Rancho Santa Teresa likely included several adobe buildings, pens, and corrals below Santa Teresa Spring. The rancho economy was based on hides and tallow, and a family’s wealth centered on the number of cattle it owned. Jose Joaquin Bernal processed about 5,000 hides, called leatherbacks, each year, trading them for goods the early Californios could not make, including windows, watches, guns, and fine clothing. By the time of his death in 1837, his 13 children and an extended family of 78 dependents occupied the rancho property. Oral family history also recalls bear and bull fights at Rancho Santa Teresa, an entertainment brought to California from Mexico, in which California grizzly bears captured from the hillsides were tethered near the hacienda and then set against bulls in deadly contests before crowds of hundreds. The U.S. government outlawed these fights shortly after California entered the Union.