1. Ontario City Library - Model Colony Room

215 East C Street, Ontario; 909-988-8481
Tues. - Sat. 1:00 - 5:00 PM; Tues. 5:30 - 8:30 PM

This local history archive of the Ontario City Library hosts a satellite display highlighting the transformation from cattle-grazing ranch lands to modern towns brought by the Canadian Chaffey Brothers and their innovative ideas about land development, water distribution, and community building.

2. Cooper Regional History Museum

217 East A Street, Upland; 909-982-8010
Saturdays 1:00 - 5:00 PM

This new local history museum hosts a display exploring the pre-Chaffey pioneers to our region. Mostly ranchers, these hardy individuals lived their lives during the transformation of California from Californio to American society.

3. Casa de Rancho Cucamonga (John Rains House)

8810 Hemlock St., Rancho Cucamonga; 909-989-4970
Wed. - Sat. 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM; Sun. 1:00 -5:00 PM

This fired-brick, rancho style home of American John Rains and his Californio wife, Maria Merced, symbolizes the merging of Californio and American culture. Rains' unsolved murder in 1862 left Maria Merced in the middle of tensions between newly arriving Americans and Californios.

4. Palomares Adobe

491 East Arrow Hwy., Pomona; 909-623-2198
Sundays 2:00 - 5:00 PM

The Palomares Adobe is the homestead of Ygnacio Palomares' Rancho San Jose. Also open to the public is La Case Primera, Palomares' first home. The Phillips Mansion (now closed for restoration) was built by German immigrant Louis Phillips.

5. Yorba-Slaughter Adobe

17127 Pomona Rincon Road, Chino; 909-597-8332
Wed. - Sat. 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM; Sun. 1:00 - 5:00 PM

Built in 1852 by Raymundo Yorba, son of the great Bernardo Yorba, and purchased by American Fenton M. Slaughter in 1868, it became the center of a largely American community. Just a few miles away, the Bandini-Cota Adobe (now destroyed) remained in the hands of Bernardo Yorba's daughter Ynez Cota and became the center of a district of Californio families.

6. Chaffey-Garcia House

7150 Etiwanda Ave., Rancho Cucamonga; 909-899-8432
Second Saturday of each month 10:00 AM - 3:00 PM

Built by Joseph Garcia, a retired Portuguese sea captain, the house and its surrounding land was purchased by the Chaffey brothers and became Etiwanda, their first irrigation colony. Garcia became one of the first customers in their second, larger project, Ontario -- where he lived the rest of his life.

7. Corona Public Library

650 South Main Street, Corona
909-736-2386 Heritage Room
909-736-2381 Library main information number
Mon. & Tues. 5:00 - 9:00 PM; Wed., Thu., Sat. 1:00 - 5:00 PM

The Corona Public Library's Heritage Room hosts a satellite display focusing on the Rincon region, so named because it was a "corner" bordered by hills and streams. The Yorba-Slaughter and Bandini-Cota adobes were both located here. The Heritage Room's display also discusses the development of the Temescal Tin mines just south of Corona.

8. Workman-Temple Homestead Museum

15415 East Don Julian Road, City of Industry; 626-968-8492
Tues. - Fri. 1:00 - 4:00 PM, Sat. - Sun. 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM

(Closed the fourth weekend of each month)

The Homestead Museum features the 1870s home of William Workman of the Rowland-Workman overland emigrant party. This Victorian home was built around an existing 1840s adobe. The site also features the home of Workman's grandson, Walter Temple. Constructed in the 1920s, it is an extravagant Spanish Colonial Revival structure steeped in a romanticized view of California history.

9. Old Courthouse Museum

211 West Santa Ana Blvd., Santa Ana; 714-834-3703
Monday - Friday 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM

The old Courthouse Museum hosts a satellite display featuring the grand Californio family of Bernardo Yorba whose land holdings spanned much of present-day Orange County and parts of Riverside and San Bernardino Counties. This display also features the founding of Anaheim as a German colony of vineyards and agriculture in 1857.

10. Jensen-Alvarado Historic Ranch and Museum

4307 Briggs St., Riverside; 909-369-6055
Sat. 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM (Sept. 15 - June 30)
Admission: $3.00 adults, $1.50 children, children under 3 free

This homestead, winery, and ranch site was the home of Frisian sea-captain Cornelius Jensen and his Californio wife, Mercedes Alvarado. Jensen's crew abandoned ship for the gold fields in 1848. By 1850, he had met Ygnacio Alvarado and Ygnacio Palomares who had driven cattle north to sell to hungry miners. Jensen moved south and married Mercedes, Alvarado's daughter. The house, built by Chinese, Indian, and Mexican labor, combines the typical Californio style with elements Jensen remembered from his boyhood home on the Isle of Sylt.

11. Agua Mansa Cemetery and Church

2001 Agua Mansa Rd., Colton; 909-370-2091
Wednesday - Saturday 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Sunday 1:00 - 5:00 PM

12. Trujillo Adobe Site

North Orange Street, Riverside
Not open to public, site is visible from street.

These two sites, one on each side of the Santa Ana River, were part of the community of San Salvador established by Indian/Hispanic pioneers from Abiquiu, New Mexico. The community featured irrigated farmsteads of grapes, grains, vegetables, and fruit trees as well as communal grazing lands for horses, sheep, and cattle. Agua Mansa was the community center (church, cemetery, Cornelius Jensen's store). Across the river in La Placita, was the home of the community's leader, Lorenzo Trujillo, who first traveled to California with the pioneering Rowland-Workman emigrant party of 1841.

13. San Bernardino Asistencia

26930 Barton Road, Redlands; 909-793-5402
Wednesday - Saturday 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Sunday 1:00 - 5:00 PM

This Estancia (outpost) of Mission San Gabriel was established in 1819 with a single structure built as a chapel. In 1830, a new 14 room structure was completed but abandoned by the church upon secularization. Succeeding residents included Jose del Carmen Lugo and Mormon pioneer Bishop Nathan C. Tenney. The site's "restoration" in the 1930s included many artistic liberties typical of early preservation efforts. Even its name "Asistencia" is apparently a "restored" version of Estancia.

14. Yucaipa Adobe

32183 Kentucky St., Yucaipa; 909-795-3485
Wednesday - Saturday 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Sunday 1:00 - 5:00 PM

Believed to be the oldest standing residence in San Bernardino County, the Yucaipa Adobe was originally thought to be the home of Diego Sepulveda. Archaeological studies completed in 1989-90, however, suggest that Sepulveda's home was nearby and the existing structure is the 1858-59 home of James Waters, a hunter, trapper, and mountaineer. This site, a marshland with abundant vegetation and wildlife, was occupied by Serrano Indians long before European contact.

15. Gilman Ranch and Wagon Museum

16^th and Wilson Streets, Banning; 909-922-9200
Sundays 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM (March 1 - November 30)
Admission: $2.00 adults; $1.00 children under 12

This site, maintained by the Gilman family from the 1860s until the 1970s includes remains of three Native American village sites, mission/Californio era adobe ruins, and an early American era stagecoach site -- remnants of the primary pre-railroad overland transportation route from Arizona to Southern California.

16. Malki Museum; Morongo Indian Reservation

Established in the 1960s and located on the Morongo Indian Reservation, the Malki Museum is operated by a volunteer board of Cahuilla and Serrano peoples and others. The museum preserves the history and culture of Southern California Indian peoples, publishes research and other scholarly works, and holds an annual public festival and agave roast. The museum's grounds feature Temalpakh, a garden of native plants.