Lopez Adobe

About this property

López Adobe, located at 1100 Pico Street in San Fernando, California, is one of the two oldest private residences in the San Fernando Valley. Built in 1882 by early settlers of the San Fernando Valley a short distance from the San Fernando Mission, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. The Grand-Reopening of the property occurred on March 22, 2015, and is now open for public tours once every 4th Sunday of every month from 12-4 P.M. Gerónimo López, born in the pueblo de Los Ángeles in 1828, had served as an army messenger in 1847 for Andrés Pico during the Mexican–American War, delivering the Articles of Capitulation to General John C. Fremont, that ended the war in southern Alta California. Catalina López was the only daughter of Pedro López, the second mayordomo of the San Fernando Rey de España Mission, where she was raised; she remained at the mission until 1847 when she moved to Los Ángeles, returning later as the bride of Gerónimo López. Gerónimo and Catalina López purchased 40 acres (160,000 m2) of land near the Mission San Fernando in 1861 and built an adobe home along the Butterfield Overland Mail 1st Division, on the Stockton - Los Angeles Road wagon route that connected Los Angeles and San Francisco. The original adobe became known as López Station. The couple also operated the San Fernando Valley's first general store, its first English language school, and the first post office (in 1869) at the site. In the late 1860s and early 1870s a traveler riding through the high wild mustard fields of the San Fernando Valley would find little evidence of people except for the mission, a few other adobes, cattle grazing in the fields and a stage house built by Gerónimo López and his wife, Catalina. ... The López family played an important role in the valley's development and were responsible for establishing the first post office and the first English-speaking school. The original López Station adobe was destroyed in the 1910s for the construction of the San Fernando Reservoir (later renamed Van Norman Reservoir), part of the then new Los Angeles Aqueduct system. After the 1971 San Fernando earthquake the foundation was again exposed in the reservoir basin. It was later covered by the vehicle track when the Los Angeles Police Department built the Davis Training Center in the late 1990s. Senator Charles Maclay and his partners George K. and Benjamin F. Porter bought the remaining northern half of the Rancho Ex-Mission San Fernando from Eulogio de Celis in 1874. Maclay would own the east portion in which the López's land lied and he would proceed to lay out the new town of San Fernando, adjoining the railroad which arrived in the valley the same year the ex-mission rancho lands were purchased.

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

More in Los Angeles County

Historic places, battles, and census history across Los Angeles County.

More historic places in California

Browse all historic places in California.

Conflict records

Explore 19,000+ military engagements across American history.

California history

Colonial settlement, territorial period, and statehood narrative.