Adobe de Palomares

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

Worth the stop nearby

• Graber Olive House — 5.5 mi
  The oldest business in Ontario, a cannery of five hundred brine vats — shut since the pandemic and in foreclosure.
• Planes of Fame Air Museum — 9.5 mi
  On the field where the country smelted its surplus warplanes — and about thirty of the aircraft here still fly.
• Kaiser Steel Mill Site — 14 mi
  The mill that made Fontana a steel town, gave the country Kaiser Permanente, and drew a color line at Base Line Road.
• Mission San Gabriel Arcangel — 21 mi
  The fourth Alta California mission, built on Tongva land with Tongva labor, rebuilt after arson and now telling that story straight.

More markers nearby

• Temporary Detention Camp for Japanese Americans, Pomona — 1.5 mi
• First Home of Pomona College — 2.6 mi
• La Casa de Carrión — 2.7 mi
• Madonna of the Trail — 5.4 mi