Adobe Abode Multi-Cache
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Located near the Hollister Adobe, this two-stage multicache will give you an opportunity to become acquainted with this historical site.
The Hollister Adobe was constructed some time in the early 1840’s by Guadalupe and Carmen Cantu. Governor Juan Alvarado had granted the San Luisito land grant to Cantu on August 2, 1840. Cantu had been a soldier at Mission San Luis Obispo in the 1830’s.
On August 30, 1859, John Wilson purchased the grant for $11,000. He then deeded the San Luisito and El Chorro properties to his sisters when he died in 1861.
Ellen Hollister purchased the grant with the original three-room adobe in October of 1866. Her husband Joseph had driven herds of sheep (12,000 head) on two separate occasions from Ohio, where they lived, to California. She eventually decided to join him in California, but didn’t like the area that he had selected just north of Santa Barbara. So, she came north to San Luis Obispo and met J.P. Andrews who showed her the property, which she then bought for $1.25 an acre. She died just six months later after giving birth to a daughter who had lived only a few days, apparently falling victim to TB. Both she and the child are buried somewhere near the adobe, though no one knows quite where.
Joseph died in 1874 and left the land to their son, John. He was in college at Berkeley when his father died, but upon graduating he moved back to the ranch. He was a member of the County Board of Supervisors at age 23, and was later elected to the California Assembly. He over-extended himself financially in the 1880’s and ended up losing the property to the bank.
The bank leased the property to Camillo Ghiringhelli, a Swiss-Italian immigrant who had met and married his wife Theresa at the Mission in 1907. Camillo died in 1918, by which time he had bought the property, and left it to his daughter Lillie.
In 1940, as WWII was brewing on the horizon, the military took the property by right of eminent domain and Lillie was heart broken. The base commander at Camp San Luis ordered the now 22-room ranch house razed, but surprisingly as the bulldozer moved into the building it didn’t just fall – the three-room adobe was embedded inside and acted as a kind of support system. They removed the wood structure from around the adobe and left the adobe mostly intact. The adobe served as the original site of the base “chapel” – an outdoor alter was constructed right in front of the adobe.
Cuesta College moved to what had been Camp San Luis in 1962, and an instructor named Jay Van Werlhof, along with students and some locals, restored the adobe by 1972.
(Special thanks to Dennis Judd for providing the historical narrative.)
Park in Lot 7. A parking permit is required Monday through Saturday, so your best bet might be to come on Sunday or a holiday. A one-day permit can be purchased for $1. The final cache is within walking distance of the first cache.
The first stage is a small cache containing instructions for locating the final cache. You will need to reference the historical information above, so bring a hard copy. You will also need a basic calculator. Please exercise CARE when retrieving and replacing the first cache! GPS coverage may be spotty.
Final cache is regular size with trade items. It is NOT located on the base, so if your GPS is sending you there, redo your calculations. Check sums for coordinates are N = 24, W = 26 (add individual digits in each set of coordinates).
Depending on when you come, the location may be fairly high profile. If you come on Sunday it is a nice place to have a picnic lunch.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
1. Uvqvat va gur qnex. Or oenir!
2. Oruvaq fbzrguvat ynetr.
Treasures
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