Walters Ranch Hop Kiln

The bronze credits a crew of Italian stonemasons; the register names the builder, Angelo "Skinny" Sodini. The kilns dried hops from 1905 until about 1940, when downy mildew had ended the county's hop trade and the ranch went over to sheep. Dr. Martin Griffin, a physician and Marin conservationist, bought it in 1960, restored the kilns with friends and a barn builder, and made wine from century-old vines to pay for it. The Magic of Lassie was filmed here, and Landmark Vineyards has owned the ranch since 2016.

What the plaque says

Walters Ranch Hop Kiln This structure served the important hop industry of California's North Coast region, once the major hop-growing area in the West. Built in 1905 by a crew of Italian stonemasons, it represents the finest existing example of its type, consisting of three stone kilns for drying hops, a wooden cooler, and a two-story press for baling hops for shipment. California Registered Historical Landmark No. 893 Plaque placed by the State Department of Parks and Recreation in cooperation with Griffin Vineyard, May 1, 1977.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Goat Rock and the Russian River Mouth — 16 mi
  A headland blasted for a jetty that never kept the river open, at the mouth where harbor seals haul out.
• Tomales Point — 24 mi
  The northern tip of Point Reyes, where tule elk were fenced in for forty-six years and are fenced in no longer.
• Salt Point and Gerstle Cove — 25 mi
  A cove where sandstone for San Francisco's streets went aboard schooners, on a point named for the salt the Kashaya Pomo came for.

More markers nearby

• Cooper's Sawmill — 3.3 mi
• Luther Burbank Home and Garden — 11 mi
• Petrified Forest — 12 mi
• John Medica's Castles & Garden — 13 mi