Site of the Rancho Chino Adobe of Isaac Williams

Isaac Williams married into the Lugo family, took twenty-two thousand acres of Rancho Chino from his father-in-law, and in 1841 built an adobe big enough to matter. It mattered in September 1846, when about fifty Californios besieged it and took twenty-four Americans prisoner in what is called the Battle of Chino. Afterwards the house settled into a gentler career as an inn and stage stop on the immigrant road, known up and down the trail for feeding people well.

What the plaques say

[Rancho Chino Adobe Site — the state plaque, placed 1982] Near this site, Isaac Williams in 1841 built a large adobe home, located on the 22,000-acre Rancho Chino which he acquired from his father-in-law, Antonio Lugo. The "Battle of Chino" occurred at the adobe on September 26-27, 1846, during which 24 Americans were captured by a group of about 50 Californios. Located on the Southern Immigrant Trail to California, the adobe later became an inn and stage stop famous for its hospitality. [Site of the Battle of Chino — the plaque standing beside it, placed 1946] Near this spot once stood the home of Isaac Williams, first American settler in this valley, about which on September 26-27, 1846, was fought the first important engagement in California of the war with Mexico. This was also the site of the Chino Ranch Station of the Butterfield Stage Line, 1858-61.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Planes of Fame Air Museum — 4.5 mi
  On the field where the country smelted its surplus warplanes — and about thirty of the aircraft here still fly.
• Graber Olive House — 7.3 mi
  The oldest business in Ontario, a cannery of five hundred brine vats — shut since the pandemic and in foreclosure.
• Kaiser Steel Mill Site — 14 mi
  The mill that made Fontana a steel town, gave the country Kaiser Permanente, and drew a color line at Base Line Road.
• Sherman Institute & the Sherman Indian Museum — 17 mi
  The federal Indian boarding school Riverside lobbied to get — still a school today, its 1902 building now a museum.

More markers nearby

• Yorba-Slaughter Adobe — 4.5 mi
• First Home of Pomona College — 5.1 mi
• Temporary Detention Camp for Japanese Americans, Pomona — 6.9 mi
• Adobe de Palomares — 7.1 mi