Cornelius and Mercedes Jenson Ranch

Cornelius Jensen sailed a cargo into San Francisco during the Gold Rush and never went back to Denmark. He kept a store at Agua Mansa, married Mercedes Alvarado of a Californio family, and in 1865 the two of them bought this ground and farmed it together. The house is brick, laid to a Danish pattern in a valley that built in adobe, and it is the oldest brick building in a county whose oldest buildings are not. Both their names are on the landmark, which for a ranch of this era is rare.

What the plaque says

Danish sea captain Cornelius Jensen sailed to San Francisco during the Gold Rush to sell his cargo. In 1854 he settled in Agua Mansa, established a store, and married Mercedes Alvarado, a descendant of a pioneer Californio family. The Jensens purchased this ranch in 1865 and began planting vineyards and orchards. They used local materials to build their house which is of Danish vernacular design. The Jensens made this ranch an important civic, social, business and agricultural center.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Wigwam Motel — 8.7 mi
  Nineteen concrete teepees on Foothill Boulevard, the last of Frank Redford's Wigwam Villages and still renting rooms.
• Original McDonald's Site — 12 mi
  The corner where two brothers invented fast food, now an unofficial museum the corporation has never blessed.
• Cajon Pass — 23 mi
  The gap the San Andreas tore between two mountain ranges, and the doorway every westbound traveler has used for two centuries.

More markers nearby

• Site of Old Rubidoux Grist Mill — 0.6 mi
• Site of Louis Rubidoux House — 0.6 mi
• De Anza Crossing of the Santa Ana River, 1775 and 1776 — 1.9 mi
• Mission Inn — 2.6 mi