Adobe Day at Historic Site in Chino

Try life like it was in California in the 1800s during Adobe Day at Yorba and Slaughter Families Adobe in Chino, on Saturday, April 14. Scheduled from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., this event is free.

The day will include guided tours of the historic adobe ranch house and activities such as candle-dipping, rug-beating, and washing clothes in the wash tub. Children will also be able to make brooms, play old-fashioned games, and make adobe bricks to bring home. All activities are designed for families with children ages 4 to 13. Visitors can bring lunch for a picnic under the trees.

The Yorba-Slaughter adobe ranch house was constructed in 1852–53 by Raymundo Yorba.  In 1868, Fenton Slaughter purchased the ranch, and with his wife and 10 children, lived and worked at the site for many years.  Slaughter family descendants lived at the site into the 1970s.  Over the years, the ranch property included a post office and general store, a saloon, a blacksmith shop, a dairy, Fenton Slaughter’s grape-growing operation, and the Vine Slope Winery. It was even an occasional stagecoach stop for the Butterfield Overland Mail from 1858 to the start of the Civil War.

Julia Slaughter Fuqua, the third child of Fenton and Dolores Alvarado Slaughter, recognized the historic importance of the property and began restoration in 1928. The property, now a historic site of the San Bernardino County Museum, includes the adobe home, a caretaker’s home built in the early 1900s, a re-created post office and general store, and a large barn/winery building Julia Slaughter Fuqua re-constructed in the 1920s.  The site was purchased in 1971 by the San Bernardino County Museum Association. Major restoration and seismic retrofitting was completed by the county in 2000. The historic adobe residence is filled with furnishings from the Slaughter family era at the turn of the last century. Exhibits located in the post office and general store explain how the ranch was used for raising sheep and horses, and how local residents obtained everyday supplies. The Yorba-Slaughter Adobe is registered as California State Historical Landmark #191.

The Yorba and Slaughter Families Adobe is at 17127 Pomona Rincon Road in Chino. No admission fee is charged; donations of $2 (adult) and $1 (child) will go toward the preservation and maintenance of the historic site. For more information, call (909) 307-2669 ext. 271, or visit www.sbcountymuseum.org.