1. lost history
A massive adobe wall built in 1840
How does this wall compare with the
once enclosed the area around the original wall around the Peralta homestead?
Peralta homestead.
This wall has a raw adobe
An earthquake in 1868 destroyed the wall. surface. In early California,
most adobe walls were
plastered, whitewashed,
No drawings or photographs of the original and topped with red tiles.
exist, only the stories that people told about it. This wall is only 100 feet
long. The original was about
This wall is 9 feet tall and 500 feet long, surrounding
3 feet wide, the same as two-and-a-half acres.
Today this wall of raw adobe has been the original.
The core of this wall is made
constructed in memory of the vanished wall of steel rebar and concrete
to make it seismically sound.
and the people who lived here. It serves as
a backdrop for the community stage, where The bricks are smaller than
traditional adobe bricks.
people today can bring their stories to life. Modern workers who made
this adobe wall carried
smaller and lighter bricks
than the Indian workers
who made most of the
adobe structures on
the ranchos and at the
Do you know the story of missions.
something that has vanished?
Why did the Peraltas build an adobe wall?
Historians’ brainstorm:
Illustration from Seventy-five Years in California by William Heath Davis. California Rancho Scene, 1848, Alfred Sully. Courtesy of the Oaklnand Museum, Kahn Collection. Ocotepec, Hildago, México
to protect their livestock, gardens to have a gathering place so that their homestead would look
and orchards for social activities and work like a traditional hacienda
The adobe wall blends many cultures
and histories.
The word “adobe” comes
from the Arabic word for
“mud bricks,”
pronounced a-túb.
The Spanish adopted the
Senufo Village, Ivory Coast. Courtesy of Dick and Beany Wezelman.
People use adobe word “adobe” when the
Moors ruled Spain for over
all over the world today.
700 years, from 777–1492.
Tratado de Ajedrez, Dados y Tablas, c. 1283, El Escorial, Spain.
TRADITIONAL ADOBE RECIPE:
Los folletos traducidos al español sobre todos los señalamientos se encuentran en Peralta House.
Mix clay soil, dried grass, and sand
with water. Press the mixture into
wooden frames. Remove from Coù caùc taäp saùch dòch sang tieáng Vieät cho taát caû caùc baûng hieäu taïi Peralta House.
frames and allow to dry.