Reginaldo Francisco del Valle

Reginaldo Francisco del Valle (December 15, 1854 – September 20, 1938) was a Californio statesman, lawyer and politician who served as a member of the California State Assembly from 1880 to 1883, and the California State Senate from 1883 to 1887. He was the youngest ever President pro tempore of the California Senate and was instrumental in the foundation of the institution today known as the University of California, Los Angeles.

Personal life

Del Valle was born on December 15, 1854, in an adobe house facing the Plaza in Los Angeles, the son of Ygnacio del Valle of Compostela, Jalisco, Mexico and Ysabel Varela, who was born in California. In 1861, the family moved to Rancho Camulos in today's Ventura and Los Angeles counties. he married Helen M. Caystile, widowed six years previously from T. J. Caystile, co-owner of the Los Angeles Daily Times, and adopted the Caystiles' daughter, Helen. The new couple had another daughter, Lucretia del Valle, Requiem mass was in the Old Plaza Church, and interment was in Calvary Cemetery, East Los Angeles.

Political career State Assembly

A Democrat,

State Senate Reginaldo, his wife Helen, and their daughter Lucretia del Valle Grady. Del Valle was elected to the California State Senate in 1882, serving from 1883 to 1887.

As a senator, del Valle fought to establish the new Los Angeles institution as a school in its own right, with a separate board of trustees and separate governance from the statewide institution, which was headquartered in San Jose and dominated by Northern California members. Although he left the Senate in 1887, his proposal was eventually put into law, and del Valle was noted as the "intellectual author" of the legislation that authorized it.

Later career

Del Valle ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1884 and for Lieutenant Governor in 1890.

In 1892 del Valle was a lecturer in parliamentary law in the newly opened Southern California College of Law, and later he "formed a number of law partnerships."

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