San Deigo Historic Site 626 BANCROFT RANCH HOUSE

This adobe is next door to the Spring Valley Chamber of Commerce building on BancroftDrive. It was reported by its second owner, Captain Rufus Porter, to have been built by Squire A. S. Ensworth, and to have incorporated in it the oak timbers of a coalinghulk, the Clarissa Andrews, which was owned by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company and lay off La Playa for many years. The Clarissa Andrews had been a three-decker trans-Atlantic packet, when sail transported newcomers to America. Hubert Howe Bancroft bought the ranch in 1885, when the house was twenty-nine years old. He continued to write volumes of his well-known histories there, and experimentedwith many types of plants and crops.

This is also a National Historic Landmark.