 These newcomers needed meat, and cattle prices soared from the $1.00 to $2.00 per hide to $30.00-$50.00 per cow.From about 1848 to about 1860 the rancheros enjoyed the "golden" days of Hispanic California.The largely illiterate ranchero owners lost nearly all their land to a few bad years for cattle in the 1860s and the many mortgages they had taken out to finance a "prosperous" life style and could no longer pay back.