Historical Marker · No. 372
Adobe de Palomares
Pomona, Los Angeles County · California
Erected by California State Park Commission and the Historical Society of Pomona Valley, 1957
Rancho San José was mission land until the secularization of 1834, and Governor Alvarado granted it to Ygnacio Palomares and Ricardo Vejar in 1837. Palomares finished this house about 1854. Smallpox took three of his children and he died in 1864 at fifty-three. Doña Concepción sold the rancho off in pieces, and in 1874 the last two thousand acres, this house included, went at eight dollars an acre. Nine towns stand on that ground now. The city bought the ruin and restored it in 1939.
What the plaque says
Completed about 1854 and restored in 1939, this was the family home of Don Ygnacio Palomares, who with Don Ricardo Vejar was granted Rancho San José in 1837 by Governor Juan B. Alvarado.
Where it stands
34.09007, -117.74253 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- Mission San Gabriel Arcangel — 21 miThe fourth Alta California mission, built on Tongva land with Tongva labor, rebuilt after arson and now telling that story straight.
- Wigwam Motel — 22 miNineteen concrete teepees on Foothill Boulevard, the last of Frank Redford's Wigwam Villages and still renting rooms.
- Cajon Pass — 24 miThe gap the San Andreas tore between two mountain ranges, and the doorway every westbound traveler has used for two centuries.
- Colorado Street Bridge — 24 miBeaux-Arts concrete arches curving 150 feet above the Arroyo Seco, opened in 1913 and later a link in Route 66.