NoeHill Travels in the American West: California

National Register of Historic Places in Solano County

Near the Junction of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers Near the Junction of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers
National Register #72000260: Hastings Adobe Adobe is visible behind the siding
23 May 2006
(Click Photos to Zoom)
National Register #72000260: Hastings Adobe Hastings Adobe c.1964
Photograph Courtesy of Vacaville Heritage Council
(Click Photo to Zoom)
National Register #72000260
Hastings Adobe
Stratton Lane
Collinsville

Ohio lawyer Lansford W. Hastings reached California by way of Oregon in 1843. Returning East in 1844 he published an Emigrant's Guide to California which recommended the Hasting's Cut-Off followed by the ill-fated Donner Party who attempted the high mountain crossing too late in the year and were snowed in.

Returning West, Hastings was named as Mormon agent to select a strategic site for a Mormon colony in the then Mexican territory of California. He found a site at the junction of the Sacramento River, San Joaquin River and Suisun Bay, a location which provided water transportation to the Central Valley and the Pacific Ocean. Here he built an adobe house and planned a town which he named Montezuma City.

Several colonies of Mormons had already reached California by ship, and the exodus from Illinois across the plains had started in February 1846. But after 9 July 1846, when the American flag was raised in San Francisco, the Mormons lost interest in the Montezuma site, and Hastings abandoned the site three years later.

In early 1855, L. P. Marshall and two sons occupied the abandoned building. The Marshalls repaired and improved the dwelling with a frame structure around the adobe. The Marshall family lived here until 1908 when they sold the building to the S. O. Stratton family.

The Stratton family carefully maintained and further improved the aged dwelling until they sold in 1963 to Pacific Gas & Electric Co. as site of a future atomic power plant. Vandals damaged the ancient structure until the company surrounded it with high padlocked fence.

Adapted from the NRHP nomination submitted 13 June 1972.

In 1850, Bayard Taylor published El Dorado; or, Adventures in the Path of Empire. In a chapter titled, The Italy of the West, Taylor passes the Hastings Adobe while traveling from Sacramento to San Franciso on the steamer Senator:

We at last came to the entrance of the slough, the navigation of which was a matter of considerable nicety. The current was but a few feet wider than the steamer, and many of the bends occasioned her considerable trouble. Her bow sometimes ran in among the boughs of the trees, where she could not well be backed out withour her stern going into the opposite bank....

At last we came out again in the real Sacramento, avoiding the numerous other sloughs which made off into the tulé marshes, and soon reached the city of Montezuma, a solitary house on a sort of headland projecting into Suisun Bay and fronting its rival three-house city, New-York-of-the-Pacific.

The bay was dancing to the fresh northern breeze as we skimmed the waters toward Benicia; Monte Diablo, on the other side, wore a blue mist over his scarred and rocky surface, which looked deceptively near.

When we visited the Hastings Adobe in 2006, it was not surrounded by a fence.

Historic Adobe Buildings

Alvarado Adobe in Monterey
Alvarado Adobe in San Pablo
Anza House in San Juan Bautista
Boronda Adobe in Salinas
Branciforte Adobe in Santa Cruz

Caledonia Adobe in San Miguel
Casa Amesti in Monterey
Casa Covarrubias in Santa Barbara
Casa de la Guerra in Santa Barbara
Casa de la Torre in Monterey

Casa del Oro in Monterey
Castro Adobe near Watsonville
Castro Adobe Site in El Cerrito
Castro House in San Juan Bautista
Chew Kee Store in Fiddletown

Cooper-Molera Adobe in Monterey
Dallidet Adobe in San Luis Obispo
Dana Adobe in Nipomo
Don Fernando Pacheco Adobe in Concord
Don Salvio Pacheco Adobe in Concord

El Adobe de los Robles Near Lemoore
Estrella Adobe Church in Paso Robles
Fremont Adobe in Monterey
French Consulate in Monterey
General Sherman's Quarters in Monterey

Groveland Hotel in Groveland
Gutiérrez Adobe in Monterey
Hastings Adobe near Collinsville

Hill-Carrillo Adobe in Santa Barbara
House of Four Winds in Monterey
Ide Adobe in Red Bluff
Janssens-Orella Adobe House Site in Santa Barbara
Juarez Adobe in Napa

Kottinger Adobe Barn in Pleasanton
Larkin House in Monterey
Latter Day Saints Chuch in Moab, Utah
Leese-Fitch Adobe in Sonoma
Locke Adobe Barn in Lockeford
Martinez Adobe in Martinez

Merritt Adobe in Monterey
Mission San Francisco Solano in Sonoma
Mountain View Adobe in Mountain View
Moraga Adobe in Orinda
Nash Adobe in Sonoma

Old Adobe Barn in La Grange
Oreña Adobe in Santa Barbara
Peña Adobe near Vacaville
Petaluma Adobe near Petaluma
Plaza Hall in San Juan Bautista

Plaza Hotel in San Juan Bautista
Rancho Los Alamos in Santa Barbara
Ray Adobe in Sonoma
Reading Adobe Site near Cottonwood
Roberto-Suñol Adobe in San Jose
Robert Louis Stevenson House in Monterey

Shafer House in Moab, Utah
Sobranes Adobe in Monterey
Sonoma Barracks in Sonoma
Stokes Adobe in Monterey
Stone and Kelsey Adobe Site in Kelseyville
Sugg House in Sonora
Sun Sub Wo Co. in Coulterville

Sutter's Fort Adobe in Sacramento
Swift Adobe Site near Orland
Swiss Hotel in Sonoma
The Fort in Taft
Trussell-Winchester Adobe in Santa Barbara

Vallejo Adobe in Sonoma
Vásquez House in Monterey

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