Bancroft Ranch House Museum
9050 Memory Lane (just off Bancroft Drive), Spring Valley, CA 91977

Courtesy Spring Valley Historical Society

Courtesy Google street view

THE TWO-ROOM ADOBE DWELLING was built in 1863 for Connecticut native Augustus Ensworth, and constructed with Native American labor and timbers salvaged from the ship Clarissa Andrews (run aground in the San Diego harbor). A former teamster arriving in San Diego in the 1850s, Ensworth was elected justice of the peace in 1856. Prior to his death, Ensworth sold the property to Rufus King Porter in 1865.

Porter’s daughter Rufina is reputed to have convinced her father to name the area “Spring Valley,” for the natural springs that ran through the property.

Porter sold the property to noted historian Hubert Howe Bancroft in 1885. Bancroft, who produced a 39-volume history of the western half of North America between 1882 and 1890, had offices in San Francisco and a residence in San Diego but saddled up and rode to the ranch house in Spring Valley when his asthma was acting up.

After purchasing an additional 700 acres, Bancroft established Helix Farms, an experimental farm producing fruit, palm, olive and subtropical trees, which became one of the largest olive ranches in Southern California. Over the thirty-three years that Bancroft called the ranch house home until his death in 1918, he did much of his research and historical writing on the property.

Designated California State Historic Landmark No. 626 in 1958, the Bancroft Ranch House was restored and opened as a museum in 1963, the year the Spring Valley Historical Society was founded; the organization purchased the property in 1967. With a focus on preserving the history of Spring Valley, this unique compound features the complete

Bancroft Ranch House Museum LINK