John Rains House

A two-storey 1860 adobe-and-fired-brick ranch house built by John Rains, who married into the property when he wed Maria Merced Williams of the original Mexican land-grant family. The house is one of the earliest American-era ranch buildings in the Inland Empire — built in the brief boom period when Anglo cattle ranchers were taking over the old ranchos — and the only one still surviving in its original location.

The house is run as a museum by the San Bernardino County Museum, furnished in period style with original Rains-family pieces, and surrounded by a restored garden of date palms and grapevines. Guided tours are given on weekend afternoons. National Register of Historic Places.

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A story
John Rains was murdered on the road between Rancho Cucamonga and Los Angeles in 1862, the year after he built this house. His widow Maria Merced Williams — daughter of one of the earliest land-grant families in San Bernardino — held onto the ranch through the legal storms that followed, until the property was finally lost to creditors in 1875.

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