Serrano Boulder

The boulder marks the first house in Riverside County built by somebody who was not from here, Leandro Serrano's, put up about May 1824 and long gone. The valley is named for the houses that came first. Temescal is Spanish carrying a Nahuatl word, temazcalli, meaning a sweathouse — and the Payómkawichum had theirs at the springs along this floor long before Serrano brought cattle up from the Pala asistencia. The landmark counts a first in a valley whose name records what it was second to.

What the plaque says

Site of first house in Riverside County. Built about 1824 by Leandro Serrano.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Wigwam Motel — 25 mi
  Nineteen concrete teepees on Foothill Boulevard, the last of Frank Redford's Wigwam Villages and still renting rooms.
• Original McDonald's Site — 27 mi
  The corner where two brothers invented fast food, now an unofficial museum the corporation has never blessed.

More markers nearby

• Old Temescal Road — 0.5 mi
• Ruins of Third Serrano Adobe — 0.7 mi
• Serrano Tanning Vats — 0.7 mi
• Butterfield Stage Station — 3.4 mi