The Jensen Alvarado Ranch is a historic park and museum in

Jurupa Valley, California Jurupa Valley ( Serrano: ''Hurumpa'') is a city in northwestern Riverside County, California, United States. It was the location of one of the earliest non-native settlements in the county, Rancho Jurupa. The Rancho was initially an outpost of ...

, US, and is operated by the Riverside County Regional Park and Open-Space District. It can be accessed from 4350 Riverview Drive, or 4307 Briggs Street. It was the first

kiln A kiln is a thermally insulated chamber, a type of oven, that produces temperatures sufficient to complete some process, such as hardening, drying, or Chemical Changes, chemical changes. Kilns have been used for millennia to turn objects m ...

-fired brick building built in

Riverside County Riverside County is a county located in the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, its population was 2,418,185, making it the fourth-most populous county in California and the 10th-most populous in the Unit ...

, and is the oldest non-

adobe Adobe (from arabic: الطوب Attub ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is use ...

structure in the

Inland Empire The Inland Empire (commonly abbreviated as the IE) is a metropolitan area and region inland of and adjacent to coastal Southern California, centering around the cities of San Bernardino and Riverside, and bordering Los Angeles County and Or ...

History

The Danish sea captain

Cornelius Jensen Cornelius Boy Jensen (September 29, 1814 – December 12, 1886) was a Danish sea captain and Californian politician. Of the nine one-year terms that he served as county supervisor between 1856 and 1877, Jensen was the Chairman of the San Bernardi ...

settled in Agua Mansa around 1854 where he ran a store, and he married

Californio Californios (singular Californio) are Californians of Spaniards, Spanish descent, especially those descended from settlers of the 17th through 19th centuries before California was annexed by the United States. California's Spanish language in C ...

Mercedes Alvarado soon thereafter. After the

Great Flood of 1862 The Great Flood of 1862 was the largest flood in the recorded history of California, Oregon, and Nevada, inundating the western United States and portions of British Columbia and Mexico. It was preceded by weeks of continuous rains and snows tha ...

, most of the town was destroyed with the exception of the cemetery, the chapel, and Jensen's store. Some years later, Jensen bought a part of the Rubidoux ranch. Jensen and Alvarado bought land in Agua Mansa in 1865. They built their Danish vernacular style home between 1868 and 1870 on a ranch of . Jensen built his home on this land using traditional bricks, having learned from the 1862 flood that

bricks dissolve in water. Their home, which served as the area's general store, post office, and stage stop, was built next to the town's chapel. The ranch, valued at one time at approximately $30,000, was the second-most valuable in Riverside County.

Architecture

The home's architectural style, Danish vernacular, reflected Jensen's

Sylt Sylt (; ; Söl'ring North Frisian: ) is an island in northern Germany, part of Nordfriesland district, Schleswig-Holstein, with a distinctively shaped shoreline. It belongs to the North Frisian Islands and is the largest island in North Fris ...

birthplace, while also incorporating a front

porch A porch (; , ) is a room or gallery located in front of an entrance to a building. A porch is placed in front of the façade of a building it commands, and forms a low front. Alternatively, it may be a vestibule (architecture), vestibule (a s ...

, which reflected Mercedes' influence as a

. The house was the first kiln-fired brick building in the county. It was also one of California's first

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, ). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impuriti ...

brick buildings, and it used clay found on the ranch itself. The rock foundation and the lime used in the mortar were from a Jensen's quarry north of the house. The wood for the house beams came from the

San Bernardino Mountains The San Bernardino Mountains are a high and rugged mountain range in Southern California in the United States. Situated north and northeast of San Bernardino and spanning two California counties, the range tops out at at San Gorgonio Mountain ...

. The house has high ceilings, but only one

closet A closet (especially in North American English usage) is an enclosed space, with a door, used for storage, particularly that of clothes. ''Fitted closets'' are built into the walls of the house so that they take up no apparent space in the roo ...

. There are several other brick buildings on the ranch, including a winery, which now serves as a museum.

Agriculture

In addition to apricot and orange orchards, growing wheat, and raising sheep on the Agua Mansa ranch, the Jensens had another in

Temecula Temecula (; , ; Luiseño: ''Temeekunga'') is a city in southwestern Riverside County, California, United States. The city had a population of 110,003 as of the 2020 census and was incorporated on December 1, 1989. The city is a tourist and ...

. While Riverside was a temperance city, the Jensen's Agua Mansa ranch, on the other side of the

Santa Ana River The Santa Ana River is the largest river entirely within Southern California in the United States. It rises in the San Bernardino Mountains and flows for most of its length through San Bernardino County, California, San Bernardino and Riversid ...

, had a vineyard; of wine were produced and sold each year.

Landmark

The ranch and home are part of the Jensen Alvarado Ranch Historic Park and Museum, an 1880s living history interpretive museum administered b
Riverside County Parks
Tourists are led by interpreters, dressed in period clothing, who demonstrate butter churning and cooking tortillas. The property is a registered

California Historical Landmark A California Historical Landmark (CHL) is a building, structure, site, or place in the U.S. state of California that has been determined to have statewide historical landmark significance. Criteria Historical significance is determined by meetin ...

(Cornelius and Mercedes Jensen Ranch, No. 943) and was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

on September 6, 1979. It is notable for the architecture, and agricultural development of the time, as well as Jensen's settlement here, and his career in government.

References

External links