Valenzuela Adobe

SITE OF THE VALENZUELA ADOBE   Antonio Valenzuela, early ploneer of the town of San Juan Capistrano, built the adobe in the early 1840s, probably on the ruins of a mission Indian adobe dating to the 1790s. Later Valenzuela family members worked as local cowboys or vaqueros. The adobe was damaged by fire in 1879: rebuilt ca. 1900, some portions endured until the 1960s. This site was also occupied several thousand years ago by ancestors of the Juaneno (Acagchemen) Indians, as shown by artifacts recovered during 1988 excavations.