Ramona, published in 1884, was based in part of some of the experiences that Helen Hunt Jackson had had during her visit to Rancho Camulos in 1882. Jackson only spent two hours on the ranch and did not meet with Ysabel del Valle, and yet she had a keen eye for details, many of which made it into the book. For example, the altar cloth in the rancho's chapel had a small tear in it which had been mended; in the story, Margarita accidentally tears the altar cloth and Ramona resews it together. The book became extremely popular and inspired a great deal of tourism, which happened to coincide with the opening of Southern Pacific railroad lines in Southern California.
With all of the interest generated by the book, a number of communities declared that they were the setting for the novel in order to cash in on the boom, most notably Rancho Guajome in San Diego County, where Jackson had also visited prior to the book's publication. However, the location of the fictional Moreno Ranch, "midway in the valley to the east and west, which had once belonged to the Missions of San Fernando and San Bonaventura " corresponds to the location of Rancho Camulos, and the physical description of some of the buildings on the fictional ranch accurately describe actual buildings at Camulos. On the other hand, relative to the other locations in the novel (Ramona's having been married in San Diego and Alessandro's family being from the Temecula area), Camulos seems too distant to be the real location. Unfortunately, Jackson died in 1885, never having publicly disclosed what locations the book was based on. Historians today are unsure whether Moreno Ranch actually represented a real location.
Nevertheless, by 1886, the ranch was already considered the setting of the novel. Edward Roberts published an article entitled, "Ramona's Home: A Visit to the Camulos Ranch, and to the Scenes Described by 'H.H.'" in the May 13, 1886 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle. Significantly, he was one of the first to publish an account that blended fact and fiction. The inclusion of his article as an appendix to later versions of the novel only served to cement that association.
The first book solely devoted to Ramona and the ranch was published in 1888 by Charles Fletcher Lummis, a close friend of the Del Valles and who had fallen in love with the teenage Susana Carmen (nicknamed "Susanita") del Valle. Lummis took photographs of the buildings and published them in his own book, Home of Ramona: Photographs of Camulos, the fine old Spanish Estate Described by Mrs. Helen Hunt Jackson as the Home of "Ramona". He made it clear that the Del Valles were nothing like the fictional Morenos, who treated Ramona poorly, but he too would mix fact with fiction with such statements as, " is about a hundred feet in length and runs from the door of Father Salvierderra's room to that of Ramona's room."
Lummis's goal was to discourage the novel's association with other properties, as was Adam Clark Vroman's Ramona Illustrated: The Genesis of the Story of Ramona, which compared photographs of the rancho's buildings and environs with text from the novel, as well as photographs from competing locations. By 1909, George Wharton James could confidently declare that Camulos was the "avowed and accepted home of the heroine".
Despite the lack of easy access to the ranch and any lodging in the area, tourists flocked to it, and the 1887 establishment of the Southern Pacific line only served to increase that number, with the railroad featuring the ranch in its advertisements in order to distinguish it from its competitors. Although the ranch was not developed for tourism, the Del Valles, with their Californio sense of hospitality, would lodge the visitors, but by October 1888, it was getting to be so expensive for the family that Reginaldo del Valle pressed upon his mother to stop being so hospitable. The tourists themselves would also be quite a nuisance, and uncouth visitors would steal items from the house as souvenirs, or help themselves to fruit from the orchards.
Naturally, the name Camulos became so tied to the novel that many people began to use it instead of the original "Moreno Ranch" when referring to the novel. An 1897 play based on the book was called, "Ramona, or the Bells of Camulos". In Virginia Calhoun's 1905 stage adaptation, characters in the play called the ranch Camulos as well.
Given the general belief that Camulos was indeed the original setting, D. W. Griffith shot portions of his 1910 silent film at the rancho, using the chapel, the adobe and patio, and the nearby mountains as backdrops. Paintings and photographs by noted artists such as Adam Clark Vroman, Henry Sandham (who had accompanied Jackson on her initial tour), Henry Chapman Ford, and Alexander Harmer of the rancho also illustrated later versions of the novel.
Although tourism brought much difficulty to the Del Valles, they were not above capitalizing upon their newfound fame themselves, branding their wine and oranges the "Home of Ramona Brand", with their label using the same view of the veranda that had been popularized in postcards. One Tataviam servant girl apparently also made quite a bit of money by pretending to be the real Ramona and charging tourists for a photograph.
Tourists continued to arrive even after the SP relocated their main line through the Santa Susana Pass in 1903. Two daily trains made stops at Camulos until the service was discontinued in the 1940s and tourism by automobile became commonplace at this time. After the Rübels took ownership in 1924, they continued to welcome visitors in small numbers, converting the second floor of the winery into a small museum with artifacts from the Del Valle family. Today, the rancho hosts a "Ramona Days" festival annually in October.
Read more about this topic: Rancho Camulos