The drive from San Diego to Warner Springs is a bit of a trek, almost an hour and a half depending on traffic. But the time spent getting to the Warner-Carrillo Ranch House is worth it, especially if you’re even a little interested in the history of the American West.
The old adobe appears all of a sudden as you round a curve on San Felipe Road. The structure was here long before the current asphalt pavement.
Before the current ranch house was built, there was a camping stop here on the Gila Overland Trail to California. That was in the 1840s and ‘50s. The structure that was here then was built by former California State Sen. Jonathan Trumbull Warner.
Native Americans, who had been there for thousands of years at that point, burned it down in an uprising in 1851. It was rebuilt by the family that gave it its second name — Carrillo…