Rios-Caledonia Adobe, Adobe house museum in San Miguel, California.
The Rios-Caledonia Adobe is a two-story adobe house in San Miguel with hand-made roof tiles secured to pine beams using rawhide strips. The construction preserves building materials and techniques from 1835 and shows how structures were made in this region during that time.
Petronilo Rios, the military leader of the Mission San Miguel guard, directed the construction of this adobe house around 1835 using indigenous workers on mission land. Later, the building served as a travelers' inn between 1868 and 1886 before the railroad changed the region.
The building shows early California residential design that combines Spanish colonial architecture with local building methods and materials. This blend shapes the structure's appearance today and tells of a time when local resources determined how people built.
The house is located on South Mission Street and can be visited on weekends. A research library is on site, and there is no admission fee to enter.
The building once functioned as the Caledonia Inn, where travelers stopped to rest on the old route through the region. This purpose ended when the railroad created new paths and no longer brought people through town.
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