Site of Old Rubidoux Grist Mill

Robidoux put up this mill on Rancho Jurupa in 1846 or 1847, the only one of its kind for a long way in any direction, and it meant the valley had stopped being purely a grazing range because somebody was growing wheat. The register calls him one of the first permanent American citizens in the valley. He arrived as a Mexican one, naturalised in New Mexico so that he could trade and hold land, and in 1848 the treaty changed his nationality without his moving. The mill site is a residential street.

What the plaque says

In 1846 the first grist mill in this region was built nearby by Louis Robidoux, owner of this section of Rancho Jurupa. The mill provided flour, a popular but scarce commodity, for settlers and American troops. The mill was washed away by a flood in 1862.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Wigwam Motel — 8.4 mi
  Nineteen concrete teepees on Foothill Boulevard, the last of Frank Redford's Wigwam Villages and still renting rooms.
• Original McDonald's Site — 11 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 Louis Rubidoux House — steps away
• Cornelius and Mercedes Jenson Ranch — 0.6 mi
• Mission Inn — 2.1 mi
• De Anza Crossing of the Santa Ana River, 1775 and 1776 — 2.4 mi