Ruins of Third Serrano Adobe

Josefa Montalva de Serrano lived in this adobe until 1898 on land the Supreme Court had ruled was not hers. Serrano v. United States, decided in 1866, held that a mission priest's written permission to graze cattle was not a grant and that thirty years of undisturbed possession created no claim, so twenty thousand acres went to the public domain. She stayed on anyway, another three decades. The register dates the house to the 1840s and the plaque to about 1867, and Leandro died in 1852, so only one of them has him building it.

What the plaque says

Nearby, an adobe house was built about 1867. It was occupied until 1898 by Leandro Serrano's widow Josefa. Under Spanish law, she owned the surrounding 20,000-acre Rancho Temescal; but her ownership was denied by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• California Citrus State Historic Park — 9.0 mi
  A state park that is still a working orange grove — the last big piece of Riverside's citrus landscape left standing.
• Sherman Institute & the Sherman Indian Museum — 10 mi
  The federal Indian boarding school Riverside lobbied to get — still a school today, its 1902 building now a museum.
• March Field Air Museum — 15 mi
  A century of the same field, still working — the museum parked outside the fence of a base that has flown since 1918.
• Riverside Chinatown Site — 15 mi
  Riverside's second Chinatown — an empty lot on purpose, with eighty percent of it still underground.

More markers nearby

• Serrano Tanning Vats — steps away
• Serrano Boulder — 0.7 mi
• Old Temescal Road — 1.0 mi
• Butterfield Stage Station — 2.9 mi