Ortega Adobe facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Ortega Adobe |
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Ortega Adobe, April 2018
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| Location | 215 West Main Street, Ventura, California |
| Built | c. 1857 |
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The Ortega Adobe is a special old house in Ventura, California. It was built way back in 1857. This historic adobe house is on Main Street, close to the Ventura River.
In 1974, the City of Ventura named it Historic Landmark No. 2. Today, the city owns it. You can visit it and learn about its history on a self-guided tour. The Ortega Adobe is important because it's the only house left in Ventura that shows what a "middle class" home looked like in the late 1800s. Many adobe homes used to line Main Street, but this one is the only survivor.
Contents
Building the Ortega Adobe
How the Adobe House Was Made
The land where the Ortega Adobe stands used to belong to the Mission San Buenaventura. In 1857, a man named Emigdio Ortega built the adobe house. He was the grandson of José Francisco Ortega, an important early explorer.
Building a house back then was tricky, especially finding wood. There wasn't much lumber in the Ventura area. Emigdio Ortega found a clever solution. He got the big wooden beams and rafters from an abandoned adobe house. This older house was about 40 miles away, near what is now the city of Fillmore.
Finding Materials for Construction
According to Emigdio's son, Emilio C. Ortega, the older adobe was left empty after some conflicts. Emigdio used oxcarts to haul the heavy lumber. This journey took four days!
One of the main roof beams in the Ortega Adobe is very old. It had been used in the abandoned adobe for about 70 years before Emigdio moved it. An expert named Robert Browne studied the beams during a restoration in 1970. He said this huge beam came from a Jeffrey pine tree in Sespe Creek. It might have been part of a house built around the time of Father Serra's mission.
Emigdio also bought roof tiles and bricks from the nearby Mission San Buenaventura. In January 1857, a big earthquake, called the 1857 Fort Tejon earthquake, damaged the Mission. The roof tiles shook loose. The Mission decided to replace them with new cedar shingles, so Emigdio could buy the old tiles.
The Adobe's History and Uses
Home for the Ortega Family
The Ortega Adobe was home to the Ortega family for over 40 years. Emigdio and his wife, Maria Conception Jacinta Dominguez Ortega, had 13 children! They moved into this adobe from another house nearby.
In 1866, the Ventura River flooded badly. The floodwaters swept away one of the rooms on the west side of the adobe. The Ortegas were warned and moved their belongings, including their pet dog and lamb, to a nearby wooden house. Sadly, their son Emilio later wrote that the wooden house, with their pets and possessions, was swept out to sea. The adobe, however, survived, though it lost one room.
The Ortega Chile Business
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In the late 1890s, the Ortega family started a new business. They began roasting chiles in the adobe's kitchen. They also built a wood shed next to the house to can their products. Emilio, one of Emigdio's sons, started the Ortega Chile Packing Company right there.
By 1899, Emilio's company had grown. He opened a factory a few miles from Ventura. It employed 16 women and four men. They processed 22 tons of chiles, making 55,000 cans of roasted green chiles and salsa. The cans even featured a picture of the old adobe! Even in the 1930s, the company's ads used the image of "The Original Ortega Adobe Still Standing in Ventura, California" to show its long history.
Later Uses of the Adobe
The Ortega family's food business moved to Los Angeles in the early 1900s. The Ortega Adobe was sold around 1903 or 1905 to Ung Hing, an immigrant from China. In 1913, Ung Hing sold it to Edgar Carne. Carne then rented the property to Lee Leon, who turned it into a Mexican restaurant.
The City of Ventura bought the property from Carne in 1921. For many years, from the 1920s to the 1960s, the building was rented out for different uses.
- From 1924 to 1931, Shell Oil Company used it as offices.
- From the late 1930s to the early 1950s, the Veterans of Foreign Wars used it as a meeting hall.
- The Ventura Police Department used it as a police station from 1952 to 1954.
- From 1954 to 1967, the Ventura Boys' Club used it as a meeting place.
The adobe was also reportedly used as a saloon, a secret bar during Prohibition, and even a potter's home.
Restoration and Historic Status
Bringing the Adobe Back to Life
By the late 1960s, the adobe was empty and starting to fall apart. In September 1969, the city council decided to restore it. They wanted to turn it into a historical museum and a place for tourists to visit.
Volunteers, led by Werner Weile and archeologist Robert O. Brown, worked hard. They renovated the building and found old household items and furniture from the time period. After two years of work, the adobe opened to the public in April 1971. Robert Browne said they tried to make it look just like it did originally.
A Challenge in Restoration
However, a city official named Richard Senate wrote in 1985 that some restoration choices caused problems. He said that a cement coating was put over the thick adobe walls. This was against the archeologist's advice. The cement made the adobe walls unable to expand and shrink with temperature changes, which led to them getting damaged over time.
Visiting the Ortega Adobe Today
In 1974, the building was officially named the City of Ventura's Historic Landmark No. 2. Today, you can visit the adobe for a self-guided tour. There are signs that tell you about the building's history and the Ortega family.
You can see three rooms: a kitchen, a bedroom, and a living room. The front room is part of the original house built in 1857. The two rooms at the back were added later, between 1867 and 1890.
See also
- City of Ventura Historic Landmarks and Districts
- B&G Foods - the company that now owns the Ortega brand of chiles and sauces
