Rómulo Pico Adobe (Ranchito Rómulo)

Tataviam, Tongva and Chumash people walked down from the mission to raise the oldest room here about 1834, and no record says what they were told it was for. Eulogio de Celís enlarged it in 1846. Rómulo Pico and his wife Catarina moved in around 1874 and added the upper story and two wings. It stood empty after the 1890s while treasure hunters dug up the floors hunting money nobody had buried. Mark Harrington bought the ruin in 1930 and would not rebuild the walls — he replaced the weathered top courses and left the rest.

What the plaque says

Oldest portion built about 1834 by ex-Mission Indians. Enlarged by Eulogio de Celis in 1846. Upper story added by Romulo Pico in 1874. Restored by Mr. & Mrs. M.R. Harrington in 1930.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mission San Fernando Rey de España — 0.4 mi
  The seventeenth Alta California mission, founded at the Tataviam village of Achoicominga, with the largest adobe building in the state standing beside it.
• The Cascades — 4.2 mi
  The concrete chute where the Los Angeles Aqueduct arrives, and where forty thousand people watched the Owens Valley come south in 1913.
• Oak of the Golden Dream — 7.5 mi
  Gold was found in California here in 1842, six years before Sutter's Mill, and the oak it was found under is still standing.
• Pioneer Oil Refinery — 7.7 mi
  The first commercially successful refinery in the West, built in 1876 to take the crude coming down the pipeline from Pico Canyon.

More markers nearby

• Brand Park (Memory Garden) — 0.3 mi
• Mission San Fernando Rey de España — 0.4 mi
• Griffith Ranch — 3.4 mi
• San Fernando Cemetery — 3.7 mi